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SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 



A MANUAL OF MODERN 
SCHOOL MANAGEMENT 



BY 

HENRY EASTMAN BENNETT 

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 



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COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
HENRY EASTMAN BENNETT 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
417-7 



AUG -6 1917 



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GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS ■ BOSTON • U.S.A. 

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PREFACE 

This work is the outcome of many years of experience 
in school management and supervision, as well as in the 
teaching of these subjects in college and normal-school 
classes. Its aim is first of all to be practical and genuinely 
helpful to teachers, and in the next place to set higher 
ideals in this field than are usually associated with the 
practical attitude. Experience has convinced the author 
that the gap between theory and practice is more imaginary 
than necessary, and this work is largely an effort to bridge 
that chasm. I have tried to reconcile conflicting theories 
and to outline a concrete plan of procedure in which many 
of the fine but uncorrelated and fragmentary discussions 
may be harmonized. It is recognized that many widely 
known statements, even some included in the "Readings" 
given in the text, are more or less in conflict with the posi- 
tions taken here ; but they are also in conflict with each 
other. As the book is for learners rather than for critical 
argument, attention has not been directed toward these dis- 
agreements in particular, but every effort has been made to 
encourage independence of thought. The point of view' is 
further set forth in the first chapter. 

I have had in mind the average school of average oppor- 
tunities and the teacher of average ability. The temptation 
to think in terms of ideal schools and experimental schools 
has been put aside with reluctance. The discussions have 
been directed away from the peculiar problems of the rural 
ungraded school, with its one untrained teacher, and from 
those of the impersonal unit in the huge municipal machine, 



iv SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

though it is hoped there is something of value for both 
these, and I have thought rather of the community school 
of medium size, where the larger part of American teaching 
and learning is done. 

My deep obligation is acknowledged to the hundreds of 
William and Mary men whose responsiveness has been an 
important guide to the things most worth while in this dis- 
cussion ; to the earnest corps of teachers in the Training 
School at Williamsburg, who have cooperated by testing out 
the more radical statements in daily practice ; and to my wife 
and to my colleagues, Professor George O. Ferguson, Jr., 
now of Colgate University, and Professor John W. Ritchie, 
for their patient and discriminating criticisms during the 
preparation of the book. I am also indebted, for extracts 
and illustrations used, to the kindness of Dr. John Dewey, 
Dr. Lewis M. Terman, Dr. Clarence A. Perry, the JVIac- 
millan Company, Houghton Mifflin Company, Miss Flora J. 
Cooke, Miss Mary E. Murphy, Superintendent R. E. Hall, 

Director W. H. Magee, and others. 

H. E. B. 

Williamsburg, Virginia 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I. EFFICIENCY IN MANAGEMENT i 

Scope of school management. Economy. Demonstrable results. 
Management as educative as instruction. Pupil's interest and 
school's welfare do not conflict. The form and the spirit. Gen- 
eralizations and illustrations. Conservatism, criticism, and rad- 
icalism. Suggestions to students. 

CHAPTER II. THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 9 

A glance backward. Central location. Sanitary surroundings. 
The teacher's responsibility. The space required. Using dis- 
advantages. Beautifying sensibly. Cleaning up and keeping up. 
Where decency is in danger. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER III. BUILDINGS 19 

In retrospect. Medieval origins. Modern tendencies. The stand- 
ard classroom. Corridors. Doors. Stairways. Cloakrooms. 
Toilets. Are children destructive ? The remedy. " Destructive- 
ness " diverted. Advantages. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER IV. LIGHTING 28 

Eyestrain. Its causes. Aggravations. Its effects. The pity of it. 
Principles of lighting. Window requirements. Wall coloring. 
Window shades. Which direction ? Remedying defective light- 
ing. Lighting limitations. Books. The teacher's opportunity. 
Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER V. HEAT AND VENTILATION 37 

Master-teachers and fresh air. Outdoor classes. Open-air rooms. 
Window ventilation. Window boards. Flushing and drafts. 
Fresh air. What is fresh air ? Oxygen and energy. The real 
temperature problem. Humidity. What is the ventilation prob- 
lem ? Direct radiation. Gravity systems and the jacketed stove. 
Hot-air furnace. Ventilation standards. Precautions. Forced 
circulation. Larger systems. Foot-drying. Humidifying. Test- 
ing the air. Summary of practical rules. Problems. Readings. 

v 



vi SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VI. SEATS AND DESKS . 53 

Seats of the past. " The bugbear of school hygiene." Essentials 
of a good desk : Construction ; Finish ; Single ; Seat ; Back, 
Desk top ; Book box ; Inkwells ; Movable desks ; Adjustments. 
The hygiene of sitting. Seating and posture training. Reno- 
vating defaced desks. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER VII. APPARATUS 62 

Two ways of wasting. The useful and the useless. Pupil-made 
apparatus. Instruments of precision. Familiar contrivances. 
Good tools. Primary materials. Arithmetic measures. Maps. 
Stereopticon. Library. Museum. Phonograph. Playground 
equipment. Care of equipment. General principles quoted. 
Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER VIII. SCHOOL HOUSEKEEPING 75 

Standards and traditions. Janitors. Floor cleaning. Dusting. 
Disinfecting. Chalk dust. Catch-alls. Educative values and 
pupil participation. Summary of N. E. A. recommendations. 
Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER IX. HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 

SCHOOL ./> 84 

A growing responsibility. A pressing social problem. Sanitary 
dangers and ideals. General precautions. Infectious sprays. 
Drinking-cup dangers. Clean hands. The rural water supply. 
Segregation of suspects. Communicable diseases among school 
children. A civic lesson. The hope of human progress. Prob- 
lems. Readings. 

CHAPTER X. HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 95 

The four responsibilities. The waste from physical defects. 
Medical inspectors. Dental inspection. Examination by special- 
ists. School nurses. Teacher as medical inspector. Eye tests. 
Hearing tests. Health records. Reports. Special consideration 
of defectives. Instruction the higher purpose. Competition in 
health training. The health ideal. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XL THE COURSE OF STUDY 109 

Early courses. State and city tendencies. Types of courses. 
The time-limit fallacy. Shifting bases of course of study. True 
functions of the course. Its adaptability. Teacher's use of the 
course. The measure of good teaching. The cause of bad teach- 
ing. Problems. Readings. 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XII. ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL ... 119 

Origin of class instruction. The trend to the mechanical. Un- 
graded schools. Values of grading. Factory organization or 
craftsmanship? Eight and four or six and six. Departmental 
teaching. Aims of modern organization. Indictment of the 
mechanical systems. Does grading grade ? Semiannual grades. 
Shorter intervals. Special classes. Cambridge " double-track " 
plan. Pueblo or individual plan. Batavia plan. Flexible or 
shifting group plan. Flexible subject grouping. Differentiated 
courses. Essentials of flexibility. Values of flexibility. Problems. 
Readings. 

CHAPTER XIII. PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS . 138 

Promoting machinery. Nonpromotions. Examinations as basis 
of promotions. Informal tests. Daily grades. Teacher's judg- 
ment. Combinations. Cooperative classification. Principles of 
promotion. Pupil participation. Partial promotions. Conditions. 
Continuous promoting. Efficiency advancement. Scientific tests 
and scales. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XIV. MARKING SYSTEMS 150 

Frequency. Numerical grades. Qualitative terms. Letters. 
Departmental variations. Normal distribution. Relative ranking. 
Awarding honors oy chance. Instructive grading. Problems. 
Readings. 

CHAPTER XV. REPORTS TO PARENTS 159 

Effects of the usual type of report. What the report should do. 
A satisfactory form. Its use. Specimen comments. Effects on 
teaching. Problems. 

CHAPTER XVI. THE DAILY SCHEDULE 167 

Traditional forms. Principles of the schedule. I. Physiological 
considerations. Fatigue. II. Pedagogical considerations. Reflex 
influences. The " elastic schedule." Illustrative program. Pro- 
gram for a small high school. A Montessori program. The Gary 
program. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XVII. HOME STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 184 

The indictment of home study. Its regulation. Study programs. 
Double periods. After-school periods. Segregated study plan. 
." Form subjects." Individual needs. Concentration during work 
hours. Knowledge and culture study. Latitude in home-study 
requirements. Training for leisure. Contributions to home life. 
Problems. Readings. 



vm SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XVIII. GETTING STARTED RIGHT 194 

Readiness of the teacher. Readiness of the plant. Class rolls. 
Course of study interpreted. First impressions. Work of the 
first days. Not too many changes. Study habits. A clean slate 
for a bad record. Getting in tune for the day. A moment of 
reverence. Devotional (?) exercises. Their aim. Bible as litera- 
ture. Routine or reverence ? Singing. Educative and socializing 
exercises. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XIX. ROUTINE 206 

Pros and cons. Function of routine. Laws of routine. An illus- 
tration. Results. Pupil initiative. Persistency. Fire drills. 
Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XX. ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 

AND STUDY . 215 

Some types of waste. Useless material. Lack of aim. Planning 
lessons : Aim ; Motivation ; Type and steps of lesson. Value of 
writing plan. Written plan a guide to criticism. Form of plan. 
When plan-writing becomes unnecessary. Self-criticism. Prog- 
ress notes. Eliminating superfluous drill. Waste in lack of 
thoroughness. What is " thoroughness " ? What errors are inex- 
cusable ? Making the list of " inexcusables." Social motivation. 
Grammatical weeks. Waste in study. Study is selective thinking. 
Dead-level study is waste. Assignment. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXI. WORK AND DRUDGERY 229 

Play and work. Routine and drudgery. Aims, — fleeting and 
abiding. Is drudgery blessed ? Dewey on work and drudgery. 
The meaning of drudgery. What makes for character ? Life has 
no need for drudges. Summary principles. Drudgery in teach- 
ing. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXII. MARKING EXERCISES 239 

The drudgery of marking papers. Prevents good teaching. 
Marking papers fails of its purpose. Eliminating needless mis- 
takes. Application of the taboo. Values of grading by pupils, 
— to the graders, — ■ to the writers. An illustration. Some mis- 
conceptions. Variations. Makes for economy and definiteness. 
Exact grades required. Value in questions of taste. The 
teacher's study and marking of the papers. Instructive 
comments. Problems. Readings. 



CONTENTS ix 



CHAPTER XXIII. MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 250 

Motives defined. Classification. The child is a social being. 
Interested in school work directly. Normal motives social and 
mixed. Eorms and evidences of social control. Multiple social 
groups. Sympathy limited by knowledge. Success of socialized 
school work. Methods of using the social motive. Group com- 
petition. Contributions to the class group in "content" studies. 
In "form" studies. ^Remedying deficiencies. Group self- 
correction. Social shortcomings of family and school. Princi- 
ples of motivation. Meaning of incentive. Use of incentives. 
Classification of incentives. Principles of incentives. Problems. 
Readings. 

CHAPTER XXIV. PUNISHMENT 269 

Negative incentives. Punishment through the ages. Principles 
of punishment; Promotes affection; "Lightning principle"; 
Last resort or first aid ; Penalty schedules ; Educative aspects ; 
Natural punishment ; Social penalties. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXV. CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT .... 281 

What is order'' Transition of government to social control. 
Government must vary with the governed. Success of the demo- 
cratic spirit in school. School cities. Liberty grows with capac- 
ity for it. Results of unnecessary restrictions. Values of self- 
direction. Initiating social rule. Self-made restrictions — few 
but infallible. Restrictions imposed by authority. Rules for the 
teacher's protection. Enforcement of laws by pupils. Selection 
of monitors. Installation. Need of infallible persistency. Social 
control of punctuality and attendance. Good citizenship in 
school elections. Caution. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXVI. CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 293 

Constructive versus corrective government. Simple deprivation. 
Innocent wrongdoing. School justice never blind. Manipulat- 
ing motives and diagnosing conduct. Dishonesty a symptom, not 
a motive. Fighting. Profanity. Vice versus virility. As to the 
girls. Authority and rebellion. Commands versus obedience. 
The authority of fairness and courtesy. Threatening versus do- 
ing. Real teacher-courage. Conclusion. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXVII. COMMUNITY COOPERATION .... 304 

School as the center of education. The foundation of society. 
The unifier of modern life. Community correlations. The press. 



x SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

PAGE 

" The movies." Other public entertainments. School and public 
service ; reciprocal benefits. Systematic instruction by public 
officials. The courts. Legislative bodies. Commercial bodies 
and welfare organizations. Efficiency of children in public work. 
Boy Scouts. School savings bank. Industries of the commu- 
nity. Educative materials as advertising. Railroad cooperation. 
Instruction by housekeepers. Instruction by tradesmen. School- 
home gardens. Medical counsel. School credits for home work. 
Values of credit scheme. Other plans. Instruction by " home 
projects." Utilizing neighborhood knowledge. Supervision and 
exhibition of home work. The church. The obligation is mutual. 
Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. SCHOOL EXTENSION 324 

Unrestricted service the new ideal. Waste through an idle plant. 
The summer close-down. Vacation schools. All-year sessions. 
Part-time study. Evening schools. The continuation school 
firmly established. Vocational guidance. Center of community 
life. Supervision of social activities. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXIX. SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS . . 336 
A teaching device. Occasion gives teaching aim. Honoring or 
dishonoring. Recreation is not celebration. Relative importance. 
Form and aim. Resulting attitudes. Reaching the patrons. 
Special weeks. Practical points. School fairs. Power of prizes. 
The parade. Problems. Readings. 

CHAPTER XXX. THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 347 
Friction and lubrication. Rights and duties: 1. Regulations. 
2. Contract. 3. Accepting position. 4. Right to a place. 5. Ten- 
ure. 6. Indorsements. 7. Exemption from interference. 8. In 
loco parentis. 9. Right of punishment. 10. Courses and methods. 
11. Personal conduct. 12. Cooperation. 13. Courtesy. Problems. 
Readings. 

CHAPTER XXXI. TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT ... 356 

Self-management in school management. Academic preparation. 
Common facts. Quacks and teachers. Professional study. A 
continuing process. Keeping physically fit. How to fill a full 
day yet fuller. Apportioning the day. Upward climbing. A work 
schedule. The folly of worry. Personality complex but attainable. 
" The best policy." Tact and its uses. Politeness — a teaching 
power. Cheerfulness. Patience. Courage to trust. Firmness. 
Initiative. Personal appearance. Cleanliness and taste. Friend- 
ship. " — But the greatest of these." Readings. 



INDEX 



371 



SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

CHAPTER I 

EFFICIENCY IN MANAGEMENT 

Scope of school management. The field of this subject 
lies anywhere between the specific problems of instruction in 
the narrow sense and the broad questions of administration 
and supervision. The lines of demarcation will necessarily 
fluctuate and overlap, rendering any definition of the subject 
arbitrary and of little use. Any topic may be regarded as 
legitimately in this field which aims to guide the teacher 
in securing school conditions, spiritual or material, favorable 
to educative progress. We may discuss anything from sani- 
tary finger nails to national ideals, provided we are thereby 
clarifying our conceptions of the school conditions under 
which real educative results are best attained. 

To avoid mere wandering about in so boundless a field 
it is essential that we be guided by certain principles. The 
following" statements will serve as selective criteria for the 
discussions which follow. 

Economy. Good management begins with economy. The 
management of a school, as of any other enterprise, has 
for its prime purpose the securing of the largest possible re- 
turns for the expenditure involved. Money paid for schools 
and the yet more valuable time of children are the invest- 
ments intrusted by the public to the hands of teachers. 
Results, in the form of practical efficiency, mental power, 
character, and that intangible product called culture, are the 



2 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

returns demanded. Inducing the people to increase their 
investment in schools is an important part of school ad- 
ministration, but the problem of school management is to 
give them as much as possible for their money, — to use no 
money for which value is not returned. Educators should 
realize too that this is the surest way to secure larger in- 
vestments in the educational plant. 

Demonstrable results. The time has come when results 
should be of a more demonstrable and largely measurable 
sort. Merely spending so many hours a year in ''complet- 
ing" time-hallowed "courses" in traditional "subjects" can 
no longer be accepted without challenge as adequate proof 
of efficiency. Nor should a school or system be measured 
by tests of its own devising. To encourage investment the 
net profits of an industry should be measurable directly by 
the investors. Objective measures of efficiency, somewhat 
scientific, are being developed in the educational world. 
However, an increasing ability to read appreciatively, to cal- 
culate accurately, to converse intelligently, to take an interest 
in the best things of life and to do well the things that 
most need doing — such results should be almost as obvious 
to parents and taxpayers as are dividend checks. 

Management as educative as instruction. The processes 
of school management are inherently educative in the high- 
est sense. It has been said that school is not a preparation 
for life ; it is life. We may say that school is a preparation 
for life because it is life. Certainly school life is as real to 
those who are engaged in it as is business or industry . or 
society. It is business and industry and society. The moral 
and social problems and the problems of practical work are 
as genuine and the motives as fundamental as any in later 
life. Class instruction in the formal subjects affords no dis- 
ciplinary training of more permanent value than the prac- 
tical and social situations of the child's school life. No 



EFFICIENCY IN MANAGEMENT 3 

examination takes a pupil's measure so effectively as his 
daily intercourse with his fellow pupils. No habits derivable 
from the problems of arithmetic are more useful than those 
which may be derived from the problems of getting along 
with one's fellows. A fixed attitude of sympathy, justice, 
and cooperation toward the individuals and the social units 
which constitute the school counts more for good citizen- 
ship than the profoundest knowledge of history or the 
rarest appreciation of poetry. Furthermore, the very in- 
struction itself can be motivated and vitalized in no way 
better than by using the problems of school organization 
as object lessons or as centers of correlation. Good man- 
agement will seize upon every school situation as a sig- 
nificant opportunity for instruction or training. This by 
no means implies a " preachy " attitude on the part of 
the teacher. So genuine are the problems of school life 
that the teacher needs only to appreciate them fully to 
avoid any occasion for shamming. 

Pupil's interest and school's welfare do not conflict. 
The highest interests of the school and of the individual 
pupil are identical. Each problem of management is to 
be considered both in the light of the educative signifi- 
cance for the individual pupil and that of the smooth run- 
ning of the school machinery. Particularly in matters of 
discipline these interests seem often to conflict. Granted 
that, in schools as in nations, the government exists only 
for the good of the governed, there still remains the dif- 
ficult choice between the view that "the school is noth- 
ing; the child is all" and the opinion that "the interests 
of any individual must give way before those of the group 
of which he is a member." We hold that either the sac- 
rifice of the school for the pupil or of the pupil for the 
school is but a half-solution of any problem of manage- 
ment. It is but a makeshift at best. When the problem 



4 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

is truly solved, the best interests of both school and child 
will be found identical. 

The form and the spirit. " The letter killeth ; the spirit 
maketh alive." Every great pedagogical idea, once the 
divine enthusiasm of its discovery cools off, tends to settle 
down in practice as lifeless formulas, systems, and methods. 
Ruts and routine are lines of least resistance, and all sorts 
of school processes tend to fall into them. In their right- 
ful use they are invaluable ; elsewhere they are deadening 
and ruinous. The best policies of school management soon 
become formalized and spiritless unless some warm-blooded 
enthusiasm keeps everlastingly vitalizing the forms. Ideals 
of management should have as a central aim the keeping 
of teachers' methods plastic and their ideas from petrifying. 
The best thing that can be said of a plan of organization 
is that it forces teachers to deal with ever-varying souls 
and individual needs rather than zvith static subjects and 
systems. Let us value any scheme of teaching as well for 
its reflex effect upon the teacher as for its direct effect upon 
the child and the school. 

Generalizations and illustrations. A textbook cannot well 
be a storybook, and yet principles are understood, and they 
are remembered, and they can be applied in just about 
the degree that they are thought oitt as specific cases. An 
author condenses into his general statements an accumu- 
lation of particular instances and experiences. The reader 
will appreciate these statements in just the measure that 
he applies them back again to cases. It would be an easy 
matter to gather countless illustrative stories and pictures 
to illuminate every chapter of a work on school manage- 
ment. But anyone who has been a teacher or a pupil, or 
who will intelligently observe either, can gather the requisite 
illustrations from his own experiences. The effort of gather- 
ing these and the thinking involved in making the application 



EFFICIENCY IN MANAGFMENT 5 

of principles to them is precisely the most profitable exer- 
cise involved in the study of the subject. It is the author's 
part in such a discussion to develop principles ; it is the 
reader's part to illustrate them. 

Conservatism, criticism, and radicalism. As to method 
of study we must steer between two clangers. On the one 
hand, there is our natural affection for those practices to 
which we have long been accustomed ; on the other, there 
is the fascination of glowing but untested visions. Long 
experience makes us conservative. When the ideas about 
which we have centered our whole system of thinking are 
attacked, we feel called to a stubborn defense as of our 
ancient shrines against the inroads of ruthless vandals. 
But the young are prone to find little charm in the prosy 
past and see a universal panacea in every plausible plan. 
The past needs no defense. Its fundamental soundness may 
be taken for granted. Out of it has come all the good of 
the present and will come all the better of the future. But 
the true way to honor the past is to improve upon it. The 
only way to preserve it is to search out its weaknesses and 
remedy them. On the other hand, there is no universal 
solvent for pedagogical difficulties, nor will there ever be. 
As fast as one small problem of school management is 
mastered another one will be confronted. Progress must 
be slow and always difficult. Every slight contribution puts 
the art on a higher plane and every step forward is infi- 
nitely worth while because it brings us — not to the goal, 
but to the next step. 

SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS 

1. Think of this subject not as something to be prepared for 
recitation or required for promotion but as practical suggestions 
for making your teaching more valuable to yourself and to those 
you are employed to serve. As you read, keep constantly in mind 



6 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the question, " What is there in this which I can make use of in 
my teaching ? " 

2. Read always with a problem in mind. With the aid of the 
sideheads, challenge the text as to what it has to offer on each 
point discussed. At the end of each paragraph or chapter raise 
the question as to what you have got from it worth remem- 
bering. Re-read whenever necessary to make the points clear 
enough for you to sum them up in your own words. Review 
frequently the ideas that seem to you most worth while. 

3. Recall or imagine a special case which illustrates each situa- 
tion discussed. Think the statements into concrete instances. 
Preferably keep in .mind some particular school — one you have 
taught or attended, or one you expect to teach. The problems at 
the end of each chapter are intended to guide you in this inde- 
pendent application. Substitute or add other problems for your 
own solution. Solve each as genuinely as though you had to meet 
it in reality. Such thinking requires time and effort, but nothing 
less can make a good teacher out of a poor one or out of one who 
is not yet a teacher. The situations discussed are not so rare but 
that the reader can furnish illustrations as well as the author. 
Doing so will prove the most useful phase of the reading. 

4. Note that the "Problems" are not intended to test the 
reader's knowledge of the text. The thoughtful reader will con- 
stantly organize and review what he has read and what he has 
thought about his reading if he expects to retain what he has 
learned. The paragraph heads, summarized in the Table of Con- 
tents, will afford the necessary guide for reviewing and testing. 

5. The references given as "Readings" have been selected 
with a view mainly to their ready accessibility. They are mostly 
either well-known texts or else government publications which 
may be had free or at a nominal cost. Read as many of these as 
you can and any of the other parallel discussions to be found in 
great abundance in educational reference works, periodicals, and 
books. Compare different statements carefully where they do 
not seem to be in agreement. Apparently conflicting statements 
are often due to slightly different use of technical words, or the 
difference between technical and popular usages of certain terms. 



EFFICIENCY IN MANAGEMENT 7 

Thoroughness in such questions is usually " many-sidedness." 
Understanding fully is not a drilling-in of the statement of one 
authority but seeing the matter in all its aspects. 

6. After getting as many opinions of a question as practicable 
formulate your own conclusion. It is not necessary to accept the 
author's statements, much less to reject them. The main thing is 
to test them out with cases until you can accept them or can write 
out statements which will better stand your tests. 

7. Take time to write out in your own words the conclusions 
of most importance which you reach. Thus you make them clear 
and lasting. You can scarcely be sure of mastery otherwise. Well- 
kept notebooks used constantly in reviewing are of inestimable 
value in making what you have learned permanently useful. 

8. Form the habit of weighing the advantages and disadvan- 
tages of any actual or proposed plan. Nothing so clarifies thought 
as to write the " pros and cons " in parallel columns. Do not be 
content to feel that a thing is right or wrong. The feeling is a 
mere vague idea, an unformulated reason. Respect the feeling — 
it may be true ; but do not desist until you can state the reason 
with precision. 

9. So long as there are reasons for and against a given policy 
— and this is true of all matters worthy of much discussion — it 
should be neither adopted nor rejected but should be modified. 
The ideal policy will have all the advantages and avoid the disad- 
vantages. We may never reach the ideal, but our real progress will 
be always toward it and we may approach infinitely near. Avoid 
" taking sides " and thus going off at a tangent. Aim for the center 
of the problem which is always somewhere between the two sides. 

10. Do not fall into the easy habit of ascribing the difficulties 
encountered to the faults of the children, of the parents, of offi- 
cials, of teachers, or to lack of funds. The schools are retarded 
not by any one of these but by all of them. They will be improved 
not by waiting for any one but by improvement of all. Put no 
faith in a solution which seeks to better one in spite of the others. 
The true solution involves progress in all of these factors, but 
the teacher's part begins at home. It should not end there, but it 
must besfin there. 



8 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

11. Study constantly the motives and conduct of children — on 
the street, at their homes, at school, everywhere. Study children, 
especially when you are free from the responsibility of directing 
them. Study them sympathetically, seeking to learn what they do 
and why they do it, rather than what they ought to do or why. 
Learn children in order to teach them. 

12. Do not seek for detailed directions or rule-of- thumb regula- 
tions. Strive rather for right attitudes, points of view, and a solid 
basis of knowledge, concrete experiences, and observations, and 
organize these into broad principles. Rise above the letter of rules 
to the spirit of the professional teacher. 



CHAPTER II 
THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 

A glance backward. In ancient Greece the schools where 
children were taught ordinarily had no grounds of their 
own, but in every city there was a public gymnasium, a sort 
of "community center" for the sport, recreation, and gen- 
eral improvement of youths and men. Here were large 
covered and uncovered running tracks, splendid groves in- 
closed by impressive colonnades, and great porches where 
philosophers and citizens were accustomed to gather for 
disputations and a social hour. Wealthy teachers in both 
Greece and Rome had private gardens where their rich 
pupils assembled for instruction. In medieval times the 
monasteries and cloistral schools were inclosed in walled 
parks or gardens, and this ecclesiastical tradition is carried 
out in the modern college campus. Schools for children 
were tolerated in some humble corners of the sacred pre- 
cincts, and this custom has been perpetuated in the pleasant 
settings of many European elementary schools. 

The typical American public school of democratic ideals 
and plebeian origin, founded on the rights of all the chil- 
dren rather than preparation for the clergy or charity for 
the poor, had little thought expended on its environment. 
In the cities unlovely graveled play areas were sometimes 
provided where land was not too expensive. In the coun- 
try some cheap quarter-acre of otherwise useless land was 
regarded as quite sufficient. Now, with greater wealth and 
a clearer conception of the future of public education, our 
cities are buying back land at enormous cost to convert 

9 



io SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

into parks and playgrounds, primarily for the school chil- 
dren, even though not contiguous to the schools. These 
grounds are being equipped with elaborate apparatus and 
supervised by trained instructors, making them an integral 
and expensive part of the educational plant. The bare jail- 
yard sort of ground open only at recess time is being dis- 
placed by the permanent, well-equipped play park, open to 
every child and adult who will make proper use of it, day- 
time and evening, Saturdays, holidays, and vacation times. 
We are getting back to the Athenian gymnasium ideal but 
with the child as the center. In the country districts a move- 
ment has begun which will ultimately give to every standard 
school ample space not only for playgrounds, groves, and 
gardens but also for a permanent teacher's home. 

Central location. A first consideration in the selection 
of a site for the school building is its central location with 
reference to the population which it is to serve. Due regard 
must be had to probable areas of development and shifting 
population, to other present and prospective schools, to ac- 
cessibility of lines of travel, and, especially in rural sections, 
to present or prospective routes of pupil transportation. 

Sanitary surroundings. More important than any small 
difference in centrality is a location sufficiently removed 
from the noise, dust, smoke, and physical dangers of fac- 
tories, railroads, or busy streets. A stagnant pool, a swamp, 
a stable or other source of disagreeable odors or breeding 
place for noxious insects and germs, is a disgraceful envi- 
ronment for an enlightened community to tolerate in the 
school life of its children. 

The teacher's responsibility. But teachers do not ordi- 
narily locate schools, and it must be confessed that a large 
proportion of American schools are badly situated. There- 
fore the part of the teacher is to make a virtue of necessity 
and seize upon the blunders of the past generation to afford 



THE SCHOOL GROUNDS II 

object lessons and training for the next. Some teaching 
opportunities arising from bad location are as follows : 

i. Mapping the district and determining the center of 
population and the relative desirability of various possible 
school sites. Such work constitutes an unusually interest- 
ing " group-project " for classes in map drawing, geography, 
and arithmetic. Many schools are located by school boards 
in ignorance of just such data as a grammar or high-school 
grade might assemble as a profitable class exercise. 

2. Where the location of the school imperils health or 
safety, the teacher has no choice but to undertake the edu- 
cation of the community as an incident to the education 
of the children. Public meetings, the press, and the pulpit 
are reliable allies in arousing public opinion on these ques- 
tions. Where a state law covers the case, it should be 
invoked by the teacher, if necessary, against the community 
for the community's good. Health authorities may be called 
upon when school authorities are persistently negligent. 

3. It may well happen that where protests and injunctions 
would fail to get a mire drained or a stable yard cleaned up, 
a vivid study of real mosquitoes and flies, of their metamor- 
phoses and breeding habits, of the germs they carry and 
the diseases they cause, may result in a campaign that will 
move the school or rid the place of malaria and typhoid 
and antagonize no one. A microscopic study of dust-laden 
atmosphere or of impure water would insure interest in 
their contents. 

4. Where pupils are unduly exposed to danger of acci- 
dent, a wide-awake teacher would assuredly have some inter- 
ested railroad man, policeman, or factory superintendent 
make vivid to the children how accidents occur and how 
they are to be avoided. In such an environment "safety 
first " and " first aid to the injured " should take precedence 
in the curriculum over any "basic subjects." 



12 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

5. Such instruction must be prolonged into training. 
Knowledge must crystallize into habits. A dusty or smoky 
environment obligates the teacher to obtain somehow ample 
lavatory facilities and to insist upon clean hands until these 
become habitual ; to have each child provided with a desk 
cloth and to train him in the use of it. The prevalence of 
flies implies persistent training in trapping, "swatting," 
screening, and " clean-up " movements. 

The space required. The size of the lot should be as 
great as possible in the city, and at least three or four acres 
in the country. There should be provision for a dignified, 
uncrowded approach in the front with liberal grass plots and 
possibly flower beds. There should be three playgrounds 
separated unobtrusively by the buildings, paths, and shrub- 
bery ; one for the large boys, one for the large girls, and 
one for the little children. The boys' ground should have 
room for a baseball diamond, becoming a " gridiron " in 
season, and for heavy gymnastic apparatus. The girls 
require space for tennis courts and for free play as well as 
shady places for walking and sitting. The little ones need 
room for swings, seesaws, and the like, as well as for 
running and hiding games. There should be liberal space 
for school gardens. Where needed, hitching sheds should 
be provided for those who drive to school. A most attrac- 
tive and desirable feature is a simple summerhouse which 
can serve as an open-air schoolroom. 

Using disadvantages. Needless to say, it is the rarely 
fortunate teacher who finds all these conditions in the play- 
ground of his school. But it is a basis of our discussion 
that good teachers are ever on the lookout for " the bless- 
ings of adversity " and zealous to convert them into teach- 
ing opportunities. Where adequate playgrounds are lacking, 
an alert teacher will combine with the children to secure 
some place in the neighborhood for the purpose. Instead 



THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 13 

of consuming limitless teaching energy during school hours 
in repressing an unsatisfied play tendency or punishing chil- 
dren for playing where they should not, the wise teacher will 
utilize the desire for a playground to motivate the most edu- 
cative work of getting one. There are probably neighboring 
lots which can be cleaned up and improved in fair exchange 
for the privilege of playing upon them. There is fine train- 
ing in self-control and in the social suppression of lawless 
ones among the pupils in the simple fact that, by the terms 
of a bargain with the owner, damage to the adjoining prop- 
erty or any objectionable disturbance arising from the play 
will automatically cancel the privilege. The school offers no 
better opportunities for developing social responsibility than 
a playground which is secured upon the condition of its 
being properly kept and controlled by the pupils. Here they 
learn that by natural rather than arbitrary laws privileges are 
contingent upon their right use. 

Where vacant lots are not available, some cities are setting 
aside certain blocks on the less-used streets as play areas 
during specified hours. During this time traffic is diverted 
to other channels. In return for this recognition of their 
rights the children practice the fundamental lessons of good 
citizenship by respecting the rights of the public. They 
learn that it pays them' to be courteous to passers-by, con- 
siderate of residents, helpful to the authorities, and to be 
regarded as desirable, cooperating citizens. 

Beautifying sensibly. Where adequate land has been 
provided there is still the problem of making it attractive. 
The Arbor Day movement attacked this problem years ago. 
Numerous interesting bulletins with instructions have been 
issued on this subject. Only a few general suggestions may 
be attempted here. 

1 . Do not begin the improvements with criticisms of your 
predecessors and inauguration of elaborate reforms. Rather 



14 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

find by careful investigation just what the predecessors tried 
to do and, if practicable, do it. Build upon the foundations 
already laid. 

2. Make only the sort of improvements that are reasonably 
sure to be permanently successful and enjoyable. " Fussy " 
structures which are soon broken down, undertakings half 
finished and abandoned, trees that do not live and things that 
children care nothing for, instill most deplorable lessons and 
counteract the best teaching of civic pride or practical aesthetics. 

3. Utility first. Provide liberally for playgrounds, walks, 
and gardens. Plant primarily for serviceable screens, wind- 
breaks, and shade. Taboo perishing flower beds. Use hardy 
vines — ivy, honeysuckle, climbing roses, and Virginia creeper 
— to cover unsightly walls and fences. Sheds and outhouses 
may be screened by vine-covered lattice work or clumps of 
evergreen shrubbery, converting the spots offensive to re- 
finement into places of beauty. 

4. Better than fences or trimmed hedges are dense masses 
of shrubbery at the corners and artistically distributed along 
the borders, low in front and high where screens are wanted 
and along the background. 

5 . Provide walks where they will be walked upon. Right 
angles are seldom either useful or graceful. Whatever may 
be said of the Boston streets, the best " laying off " is often 
done by following approximately the paths which the chil- 
dren have made. They are agreeable curves and go just 
where they are needed. Sturdy clumps of shrubbery at 
strategic points will prevent the making of too many paths. 
With the help of the larger boys granolithic walks may be 
laid at small cost. 

6. In planting, avoid straight lines except for marking 
boundaries. Clusters of shade trees, clumps and masses of 
shrubbery, and broad, irregular open spaces contribute more 
to beauty as well as to service. 



THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 15 

7. Plant vigorous, native trees, vines, and shrubs which 
require little or no care. The growing season is during 
vacation, when most school grounds have no care. 

8. Particularly study the possibilities of natural features. 
A little thought may convert a rock or stump into a thing 
of great beauty or utility, while a spring or brook is a gold 
mine of opportunity. Even a mosquito-breeding pool may 
be made into a marvel of interest and attractiveness. Do 
not sacrifice a single tree or shrub without long considera- 
tion. The school yard should grow, as a house becomes a 
home, by long planning and affectionate executing, little by 
little. The life of each child through many school genera- 
tions may be woven into the making of the yard. 

9. Transplanting is a most educative activity for children 
to participate in, but it is a complex art and cannot success- 
fully be clone in ignorance. Much study of native plants, 
and of the soils, seasons, and conditions favorable for trans- 
planting, should precede any actual digging. It is cheaper 
to pay for expert supervision than to have plants die. 

Cleaning up and keeping up. The abiding problem of the 
school yard, however, is one of cleanliness and the conserva- 
tion of improvements already made. This cannot be trusted 
to janitors. The responsibility rests upon the teachers, but 
if the children do not have a part, an unexcelled educative 
opportunity will be missed. School-yard ideals of serviceable 
beauty and school-formed habits of thrifty neatness ought to 
be reflected in many homes of the community. The sort of 
standards that are reflected may be guessed in many Ameri- 
can communities where the school premises, from the dilapi- 
dated front gate to the unspeakable outhouses, offend every 
sense of decency. 

An enthusiastic ''clean-up day" at the start may be 
desirable if conditions are very bad. Parents may be invited 
to participate if needed. But a necessity for repeated 



\6 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

" clean-ups " is certainly not creditable. Organization for 
keeping things up counts for much more. Receptacles should 
be provided for trash, and this involves the responsibility for 
unending persistence in seeing that they are used and regu- 
larly emptied. They should be inconspicuous but placed 
where they will be used. Custodians elected at intervals by 
the pupils, or appointed as reward for merit, should have 
oversight of the grounds and see that they are always left 
in as good condition as they are found or better. No 
child or teacher is too good to help clean up the yard he 
occupies — certainly not one who is none too good to help 
litter it up. The school yard is a laboratory for teaching civic 
tidiness. It is the most obvious advertisement of the kind 
of influence the teachers are exerting in the lives of children. 
Each child should likewise come to realize from this labora- 
tory that his home yard is a glaring advertisement to the 
community of his family's tastes and standards. 

Where decency is in danger. Even with the recent effec- 
tive campaigns against insanitary school privies, disgrace- 
ful thousands of them still outrage the refinement and 
commonest decency of American rural children. The self- 
respecting teacher will tolerate no laxness in this matter. 
Sanitary and sightly provision must be made by the authori- 
ties. Laws and the regulations of health or educational 
authorities should be invoked to compel compliance so far 
as may be necessary. School should open with conditions 
as nearly like those of a refined home as possible. Quiet, 
frank talks with the children, boys and girls separately, will 
probably be necessary if school traditions are bad. Such 
talks should be constructive rather than critical — of refined 
conditions and high ideals, of the standarda of ladies and 
gentlemen, of confidence and cooperation. The aid of jani- 
tors and older children must be enlisted to secure constant 
watchfulness against the beginnings of uncleanliness or 



THE SCHOOL GROUNDS 17 

impropriety. Whatever the cost, every bad tendency must be 
detected and crushed at the start. In one school an un- 
speakably bad tradition of filthy writing and drawing on the 
basement walls was entirely and permanently eliminated in a 
few weeks by means of plain talks, followed up with records 
kept by every teacher of the time each child was out of the 
room, together with a system of inspections of the premises 
made almost hourly for the first few days. 

It is far from easy to eradicate deep-rooted customs and 
build standards of refinement for a whole school at once. 
But it has been clone, it can be clone, and the teacher worth 
while will do it, however hard it may be. No true teacher 
is above doing whatever may be necessary to get right ideals 
and customs established in his school. Rather, he is above 
neglecting it. The real test comes in keeping everlastingly 
at it. Good impulses are quickly aroused in a school, but 
habits are fixed only by incessant vigilance. 

PROBLEMS 

Make a study of some school yard, preferably the one with 
which you are most familiar, as follows : 

1. Make a list of the detrimental features of the site. 

2. Which of these may be remedied by the teacher and the 
school ? Propose plans for these remedies. 

3. Which may be remedied by the School Board ? Sketch 
plans and estimate costs. 

4. How may each of these disadvantages be utilized to teach 
some important lesson effectively ? 

5. Make a diagram or write a description of the school yard 
with its environment as it is and another as it should be. 

6. Make a list of hardy trees, shrubs, and vines for school-yard 
use in your neighborhood. 

7. Make an abstract of the state and local laws and regulations 
regarding school sites and premises. 



SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 



READINGS 



Burks. Health and the School, chap. xv. 

Burrage and Bailey. School Sanitation and Decoration, chap. i. 

Culter and Stone. The Rural School, chap. ii. 

Curtis. Play and Recreation, chaps, iv, v. 

Dresslar. School Hygiene, chaps, ii, hi. 

Eggleston and Bruere. The Work of the Rural School, chaps, viii, ix. 

Foght. American Rural School, chap. ix. 

Kern. Among Country Schools,. chap. iii. 

Search. An Ideal School, chap. v. 

Seerley. The Country School, chap. vi. 

Bulletins, United States Bureau of Education 

Bulletin No. j, 1910, "American Schoolhouses " (Dresslar). 

Bulletin No. i2 : 191 4, " Rural Schoolhouses and Grounds " (Dresslar). 

Bulletin No. 28, 1 91 2, " Cultivating School Grounds in Wake County " 
(Judd). 

Bulletin No. 40, 191 3 (No. 16, 191 2), "The Reorganized School 
Playground " (Curtis). 

Bulletin No. 17, 191 4, "Sanitary Survey of Schools of Orange 
County" (Flannagan). 
Public-Health Bulletin, Government Printing Office 

Bulletin No. 37, " The Sanitary Privy " (Stiles). 
Farmers' Bulletins, United States Department of Agriculture 

Bulletin No. 218, 1905, "The School Garden." 

Bulletin No. 134, 1907, "Tree-Planting on Rural School Grounds." 



CHAPTER III 

BUILDINGS 

In retrospect. School architecture is a distinctly modern 
problem. The Greek cities, we have said, had imposing 
gymnasia for physical exercise and training. The Spartans 
had barracks in which the boys lived together after the age 
of seven, but they had no use for classrooms. There were 
large buildings devoted to school purposes in Greece, but 
they were private enterprises and represented no effort to 
adapt architecture to educational needs. One at Chios, in 
500 b.c, fell and killed 119 of the 120 pupils. Pausanias 
tells us that sixty children were buried in the ruins of a 
school building which was pulled down, Samson-like, by an 
athlete who was crazed by defeat. Usually rooms for ele- 
mentary schools were provided by the teachers in some public 
or private building, in some unused space on the porches, 
or in out-of-the-way corners of groves or market places. 
In Rome the same custom prevailed. Temporary booths 
(tabernae) or lean-to sheds opening on the public street were 
constructed. Children sat upon the floor, where there was 
one, or upon the stones of the streets. The more exclusive 
schools of the later period seem to have been verandas or 
annexes to the better class of buildings and were provided 
with benches and often adorned with valuable works of art. 

Medieval origins. Modern schools, however, trace their 
ancestry not to classic but to medieval times. Then all 
schools were of religious origin and mostly conducted as 
adjuncts to the monasteries or cathedrals, as we have seen. 
That traditional school architecture has descended from 

*9 



20 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

ecclesiastical sources is evidenced in the still common ves- 
tigial towers, imitative of early churches but useless in school 
economy ; in the arrangement adapted to a speaker and lis- 
teners rather than to a company of active and cooperative 
doers; in the meager windows distributed with reference to 
external symmetry rather than to lighting or ventilation ; 
and in the forbidding monastic impression everywhere domi- 
nant. Some church schools and the conservative universities 
still deviate little from the original ecclesiastical type. 

The Lancastrian schools of a century ago were perhaps 
the first attempt to construct buildings specially adapted for 
the needs of elementary schools. These were lofty halls 
with provision for as many as a thousand children in a single 
room. They were provided with windows definitely intended 
for adequate light and ventilation and were equipped with the 
peculiar furniture and paraphernalia of monitorial instruction. 

Modern tendencies. With the growing recognition of the 
state's permanent responsibility for the education of all the 
children there has been some progress in the character of 
school buildings, but only within the past few years has the 
problem had the best thought of architects and sanitary ex- 
perts. So new is the spirit and so different are the aims 
of the modern school from any of its predecessors, so com- 
prehensive are the advances in scientific knowledge of its 
needs, that nothing which is merely traditional in school 
structure or arrangement is worth conserving. The whole 
problem is being taken up ab initio, and here, at least, 
we need have no reverence for the old. Externally, city 
school buildings have been losing their somberness and tak- 
ing on suggestions of the office building or even the modern 
factory. In rural communities the miserable affairs, which 
resembled nothing so much as primitive stables and corn- 
cribs are giving way to unattractive imitations of city schools 
or to quite attractive imitations of country cottages and 



BUILDINGS 21 

bungalows. In progressive small towns the school is rapidly 
coming to be the typical "show-building" to which strangers 
are directed with pride. Size, however, is by no means the 
chief factor in beauty and attractiveness. Modest one-room 
and two-room buildings in pleasing rural settings may be 
made very beautiful at a low cost. In fact there is very 
much to recommend the housing of rather large schools in 
clusters of one- and two-room units connected by attractive 
colonnades. 

The standard classroom. Aside from fluctuating considera- 
tions of taste and the abiding one of economy, the problem 
of school building is primarily one of assembling standard- 
ized rooms. The accepted principles have to do mainly with 
the classroom units. The ideal for a grade room is very 
definite. It is usually fixed at about twenty-eight feet wide 
and thirty-two feet long. The dimensions may be changed 
a couple of feet either way, if desired, but the proportions 
should not be different. Such a room will conveniently 
accommodate forty pupils. Larger classes should never be 
permitted, and hence no provision should be made for them. 
Smaller classes are always likely to grow. Besides introduc- 
ing difficulties of class control by the teacher, a longer room 
causes difficulties of vision and hearing for the pupils at the 
rear ; and a wider room, for those at the front corners. The 
height should be not less than eleven feet nor more than 
thirteen feet. A higher room is harder to heat, ventilate, 
and decorate effectively and unduly increases the cost of 
construction. 

Corridors. School corridors should be well lighted and 
abundantly ventilated. They should have radiators or regis- 
ters adapted for drying or warming the feet of the children 
but should otherwise be unheated. This will aid in ventilat- 
ing the rooms and afford a healthful change of temperature 
without the disadvantages incident to going outside in stormy 



22 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

weather or cooling the classroom too much. Corridors should 
never be less than twelve feet in width and for large build- 
ings must be considerably wider. No seats, lockers, cloak- 
rooms, doorways, or stairways should interfere with the free 
passageway. 

Doors. Perfectly plain veneered doors are very attractive 
and are rapidly gaining in popularity. They are made with- 
out panels or any irregularities of surface and hence catch 
no dust. Transoms are dust-catchers of the worst sort and 
should be taboo. No part of a building should be dependent 
on them for light or ventilation nor can teachers be trusted 
to make right use of them. Classroom doors should open 
inward. Neither double-swing doors nor any that open into 
the corridors are satisfactory. A first principle of fire and 
panic protection is that all outside doors must open outward 
and be so fastened that they can never shut even the 
smallest child helplessly inside. Outer doors are now com- 
monly equipped with automatic latches so constructed that 
the slightest push on the inside of the door will open it 
even when locked against intrusion from outside. 

Stairways. There should be at least two stairways, pref- 
erably at opposite ends of the building, both for conven- 
ience in passing the lines of children up and down and for 
protection against fire. Ascending drafts in case of fire 
inevitably follow an open stairway, so that even though it 
be itself fireproof, a single stairway is likely to be the first 
part of the building to become impassable. Children of the 
upper floors can pass up or down two stairways in just half 
the time they require with one. Even for routine purposes 
the cost of an extra stairway is more than justified. In emer- 
gencies it is invaluable. Where room is scarce the double 
or intertwining stair doubles the capacity in the same space. 
Long, straight flights should be avoided. They are seriously 
fatiguing for pupils ascending and dangerous for the child 



BUILDINGS 23 

who may slip or be pushed over in descending. Flights of 
less than six steps are objectionable in that they encourage 
jumping from one landing to the next. Winding stairs are 
intolerable. All turnings must be made by broad landings. 
Doors must never open on stairs or landings. 

Cloakrooms. For satisfactory cloakrooms the requirements 
are (1) complete oversight by each teacher of his own pupils, 
(2) protection against thievery, (3) light, (4) reasonable 
warmth, (5) very thorough ventilation, and (6) economy in 
space and construction of the building. Converting the cor- 
ridor into a cloakroom spoils the one without successfully 
obtaining the other. A good plan is to have a narrow room 
at the front of each classroom with two doorways opening 
into it. In such case it is well to have the foul-air exit in 
the cloakroom and placed high so that the air passing from 
the room out through the cloakroom thus affords a con- 
stant drying current through the wraps. There should be at 
least one small window in the cloakroom. An ingenious and 
satisfactory plan is a long, cupboard-like closet placed in the 
partition wall next to the flues and occupying only the same 
depth as the flues. By means of sliding doors the entire area 
of the closet opens to the classroom, bringing all the coat 
and hat hooks, umbrella racks, overshoe shelves, etc. within 
easy reach. When the wraps are in place the sliding doors 
are closed and blackboards on their surfaces are available. 
Below the blackboards these doors contain gratings, by 
means of which the air passes from the room up through 
the wraps to the outlet into the foul-air duct at the top of the 
closet. The doors are made to run easily and noiselessly 
and are managed by monitors. The entire cloakroom is 
closed except when in full view of the teacher and of the 
entire room. During school hours the wraps are being 
thoroughly dried and aired. Cloakrooms of this sort could 
readily be added to many old buildings. 



24 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Toilets. When toilet rooms are located in a basement 
there is even more- urgent need of careful oversight, clean- 
liness, and thorough ventilation than when at a distance 
from the building. It is a long step forward to have them 
distributed on the several floors of the building, with still 
better equipment and with ideals of cleanliness more nearly 
like those of the best homes. By arranging in stacks, that 
is, with those of each floor directly over those of the floor 
below, the cost of space and of plumbing is not greatly 
increased. In a few buildings separate toilets have been 
provided opening off the cloakroom of each classroom, and 
the most encouraging reports have been given of the effect 
of this arrangement upon the morale of the school. In any 
plan the aim is to prevent them from becoming congregating 
places for the children, to keep them under the easy super- 
vision of the teachers, and to make them such as will main- 
tain the highest standards of refinement for the community. 

Are children destructive ? Except on the occasions when 
one may advise with reference to the construction of a new 
building or secure modifications of an old one, the teacher's 
opportunity in the matter of buildings is in training the chil- 
dren in the care and protection of them. Among American 
children generally there has been an appalling lack of re- 
spect for paint, plaster, and window glass. Some children 
seem to lack the capacity to get about in any house with- 
out injuring it. Many feel that a school building belongs to 
no one. They have no interest in its preservation but find 
a peculiar pleasure in defacing and injuring it as much as 
they dare. This is not due to any inherent " destructiveness " 
or willful love of doing wrong but to bad school traditions 
and to the suggestion given by the dilapidated and ill-kept 
conditions of the buildings. A broken windowpane is very 
suggestive. If it does not suggest a new one in its place, it 
will suggest another broken one by its side. Any ambitious 



BUILDINGS 25 

boy likes the distinction of having made his mark in his 
little world, and if he cannot get it on the school records in 
a conspicuous place he will try the school walls. To him 
there is genuine achievement in leaving an inscription where 
all comers must see it. 

The remedy. The remedy for this state of affairs — and 
herein is the teacher's responsibility — is twofold : first, that 
the building, however old and unworthy, be kept clean and 
free from all those disfigurements which indicate vandalism ; 
and, second, that with all the devices of instruction and 
training there be developed in the pupils an interest in 
the building and a pride in its appearance. The child who 
has actively contributed to the cleaning or calcimining of 
walls, whether by his labor or his pennies, will vigorously 
defend them against further defacement. The boy who 
takes a pride in putting his scrawls or carvings on a public 
wall will take a far greater pride in putting a coat of paint 
there. Children do not like to injure walls and desks. They 
simply like to do some tiling to them. Though they do not 
look very far ahead, they want to see the results of their ac- 
tivities. Almost any boy would rather help put a windowpane 
in than to break one out. 

" Destructiveness " diverted. Let us, then, utilize the 
children as far as possible in improving the building and 
keeping it in repair and in an attractive condition. Try to 
find something for each of them to do, even the smallest 
— but especially the "mischievous, destructive" ones. 
Within reasonable limits we can well afford to use regular 
school time for this purpose. The least appreciation of 
child nature will indicate that we cannot send children to 
these tasks, we must lead them ; they are happy to work 
•with us when they will not work for us. We do not get 
such things done by requiring them but by allowing them. 
A door painted by a boy as punishment will doubtless need 



26 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

repainting in a very short time. It is his interest even more 
than his painting that the wall needs. Just how much or 
what kinds of improvements can thus be made will vary 
mainly with the teacher's ingenuity and ability. With the 
right guidance, the children can do or materially aid in 
almost any sort of cleaning or repair work. At least, they 
can give or help collect the money to pay a mechanic to do 
the. work under their observation. 

Advantages. The advantages of this policy of keeping 
the building in good condition are obvious : It saves money 
in the repairs and improvements made. It saves much 
more by reducing the occasions for having them made. It 
insures the buildings being kept in better shape. It affords 
the most practicable instruction possible in the essential 
manual and domestic arts. It inculcates a higher standard 
of keeping things in repair, that should be reflected through- 
out the community in the course of time. It develops a 
school spirit and pride that will extend most advantageously 
to other tasks and conduct. Finally, it is the very acme of 
basic training in civic righteousness. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Compare some of the newest with some of the oldest school 
buildings of similar size within your knowledge. What changes are 
for greater educational utility ? Which merely indicate changes in 
architectural style ? 

2. Write a detailed criticism of one or more actual schoolrooms. 
Which defects are practically serious? Which are only theoreti- 
cally so ? 

3. Criticize one or more school buildings on the basis of the 
topics in this chapter. Which defects can be practically remedied ? 
How ? Would such changes justify the cost ? 

4. Study the plans of a number of buildings as given in the 
readings selected below. Select one you regard as best for a school 



BUILDINCS 27 

the size of yours. Write a summary of its advantages over the one 
you have. What modifications of the plan would be desirable to 
adapt it to the site you have ? 

5. Make a list of the repairs and small improvements needed in 
an actual building that you are studying. To what extent could the 
children be used in making these ? Make an estimate of the cost 
with the aid of the children and without it. 

READINGS 

BRIGGS. Modern American School Buildings. 

DRESSLAR. School Hygiene. 

Button and Sxeijden. Administration of Public Education in the 

United States, chaps, xi, xii. 
Shaw. School Hygiene. 
Wheelwright. School Architecture. 

American School Board Journal. (A monthly journal of much practical 
value in problems of construction, equipment, and administration.) 
Cyclopedia of Education (edited by Paul Monroe). 1 
Proceedings National Education Association! 2 
Bulletins, United States Bureau of Education 3 

Bulletin No. j", 19 10, "American Schoolhouses " (Dresslar). 

Bulletin Xo. 48, 191 3, " School Hygiene" (Ryan). 

Bulletin No. 32, 191 3, " Sanitary Schoolhouses. Legal Requirements 
in Indiana and Ohio." 

1 Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education (5 vols., The Macmillan Company) 
is the most comprehensive reference work on all educational questions. It 
is new, well organized and illustrated, and accurate. Its various articles 
might be given as references in every chapter, but to avoid mere repetition 
it will not again be cited. 

2 The annual volumes of the Proceedings of the National Education 
Association contain an extensive array of addresses delivered at the gen- 
eral and departmental meetings of that association. They are well indexed 
and, if accessible, should be consulted freely on any topic in which the 
student seeks a broad view of current opinions. 

3 The United States Bureau of Education, Washington, publishes a very 
valuable series of bulletins on a wide range of practical educational prob- 
lems. These may be secured free or at a nominal cost by addressing the 
Bureau. The annual reports of the Commissioner of Education contain the 
only complete statistical data of American education and the most compre- 
hensive review of educational progress in this country and throughout the 
world. These publications are reliable and should be freely used. 



CHAPTER IV 

LIGHTING 

Eyestrain. Nature has not yet evolved an organ fully 
adapted for the tremendous strain we put upon the eyes of 
school children. The fact that over twenty-five per cent of 
all pupils have seriously defective vision and that this pro- 
portion regularly increases during the period of school life 
indicates how we are overtaxing their eyes. Like other 
organs, the eye tends to improve with right usage but is 
easily and permanently injured by overstrain. The perma- 
nent loss of visual efficiency — a cruel handicap to inflict 
upon one at the beginning of life — is not the only pen- 
alty for overtaxing the eyes. Unless relieved by the use of 
glasses, chronic headaches and nervous affections are very 
likely to follow, making mental concentration impossible 
and resulting in retardation, discouragement, and early 
elimination from school. 

Its causes. Clear vision requires a focus of the light rays 
upon the retina at the point of its greatest seeing power, 
the fovea centralis. This necessitates (i) an exactly correct 
accommodation or change in convexity of the lens varying 
with the distance of the object ; (2) a suitable movement of 
each eye to bring its fovea and pupil in line with the object ; 
(3) a convergence of the two eyes so that both will have 
the correct alinement at the same time — this degree of 
convergence varies as the distance of the object ; (4) a cir- 
cular contraction or expansion of the iris to control the 
amount of light entering the eyeball — this varies with each 
change in brightness. Each line of print read involves 

28 



LIGHTING 29 

three to five jumps forward and one all the way back, and 
at each jump there must be a new alinement and distance 
adjustment of each eye and of the two in relation to each 
other. All these adjustments, to say nothing of the move- 
ments of the lids and glands not directly involved in vision, 
are accomplished by means of marvelously accurate stimula- 
tion and response of various sets of minute muscles. Be- 
sides this there is an accompanying strain from constant 
tensions and movements of the muscles of the neck and 
back necessary to bring the head into a favorable position 
for seeing, or of the arms to hold the book. With it all, 
the instant discrimination of the numberless slight variations 
of minute characters which constitute a page of reading matter 
is itself a marvel of delicate adjustment to light stimulation. 
When all this is considered we begin to appreciate something 
of the enormous demands we are making on the sensory- 
motor visual mechanism in the course of a day at school. 
Aggravations. Under the most favorable conditions pos- 
sible a curriculum consisting mainly of reading and writing 
and other fine visual adjustments makes extremely heavy 
demands upon the seeing mechanism. It is easy to see 
how the strain is enormously aggravated (1) by a lack of 
sufficient illumination to enable the words to stand out dis- 
tinctly from their background ; (2) by light so placed that 
shadows of the hand continuously play over the page on 
which one is writing ; (3) by cross-lights which radiate 
streaks of varying light and shade ; (4) by work placed too 
near the eye and thus requiring a constant muscular strain 
of convergence and accommodation ; (5) by work placed too 
far and thus reducing the visual size and clearness ; (6) by 
work placed at a wrong angle to the line of vision and thus 
producing a foreshortening of the letters and contortion of 
their shape as actually seen ; (7) by print too small for easy 
discrimination ; (8) by highly calendered or shiny paper 



30 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

which reflects the light in varying streaks of intensity ; 
(9) by any bright area of light entering the eye from the 
background or anywhere in the field of vision and thus 
stimulating a contraction of the iris when clear vision of 
the work demands its expansion. Further aggravation is 
produced by any disturbance in the poise of the nervous 
system due to fatigue, irritation, lack of general vigor, 
strain of the neck muscles in adjusting the head to a good 
seeing position, physical discomforts from improper seating 
or the rival stimulation of other sense organs clamoring for 
the center of attention. The situation is further compli- 
cated by the particularly bad lighting conditions under which 
most children study at night, by the intimate sympathy 
between the visual organization and the general nervous and 
bodily tone, and by the fact that a considerable proportion of 
children begin school with eyes quite imperfect. 

Its effects. The defects most common are those due to 
the shape of the eyeball or lens. They are (1) myopia, or 
nearsightedness, which is the result of an eyeball so long 
or lens so convex that the light rays come to a focus before 
they reach the retina ; (2) hypermetropia, or farsightedness, 
due to an eyeball so short or lens so flat that the rays reach 
the retina before they focus ; and (3) astigmatism, due to 
any irregularity in the curvature of the cornea causing a dis- 
torted image to be thrown upon the retina. Very few eyes 
are so perfect that careful tests do not disclose some degree 
of astigmatism. All these defects are often congenital, but 
they are easily increased by eyestrain, especially in early 
life. They are all due to lack of proper muscular control 
or balance and in extreme forms produce squint or cross- 
eyes. The strain necessary to secure a clear visual image 
with these defective organs produces headache and nerv- 
ous disorder. This in turn results in preventing mental 
concentration and scholastic progress. 



LIGHTING 31 

The pity of it. Children so afflicted are often regarded 
as merely stupid, lazy, or stubborn. The world to them is 
a series of hazy and indefinite color impressions with little 
distinctness of outline. The printed page is a confusion of 
marks that fade and flow and dance about as they look at 
and attempt to distinguish them. The most pathetic aspect is 
that the afflicted ones have no way of knowing that they see 
differently from other people. They have no other stand- 
ards of clearness with which to compare their own. A 
typical case is that of a manly fellow, from a family where 
standards of honor and intellectual attainment were high, 
who brought shame to his parents and was considered a 
disgrace to his family because he persistently claimed to 
feel bad or to have headaches at schooltime and study hour 
but promptly forgot them at other times. Although strong 
physically and apparently bright mentally, his infallible dis- 
like of school and study resulted in his being badly retarded. 
He hated school and everything associated with learning and 
made every excuse to avoid them. Not until he was nearly 
grown and the hope of an education was past was it discov- 
ered that a defect of vision had made it impossible for him 
to read without painful nervous strain. A pair of glasses 
was all that he had needed to make him an interested and 
successful student. 

In addition to these defects, children are subject to many 
sorts of inflammation of the eyes which are germ diseases, 
mostly highly contagious, and which should be segregated 
and treated as other forms of infection. These will be 
discussed later. 

Principles of lighting. It is bad enough that the modern 
school demands five or six hours of reading and writing 
each day of young children — not to mention the home 
study under conditions we know not how bad. It is bar- 
barous that we should deny them in school that which is 



32 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

so essential to them and withal so abundant and cheap, — 
daylight. The last word as to ideal lighting has not been 
said, but the principles thus far accepted should be familiar 
to every teacher. 

1. There must be no light shining into the faces of the 
children or brightly illuminated walls in front of them. Any 
light within the field of vision stronger than that .reflected 
from the book itself decreases the relative illumination of 
the book, lessens the power of the eye to read it, and 
causes continuous strain of adjustment. 

2. Light should not come from the right or from behind 
in such manner as to throw shadows from the hand, head, 
or shoulders upon the work. 

3. Light should not enter through distinctly separated 
openings, causing cross-lights and areas of decidedly differ- 
ent degrees of illumination. 

4. Light should be received through the upper rather 
than the lower portion of the windows. This better illu- 
minates the side of the room opposite the windows ; it enables 
the light to be reflected down from the ceiling rather than 
up from the floor; it admits direct light from the sky instead 
of that reflected from surrounding buildings and other ob- 
structions. A foot at the top of a window ordinarily has 
practical lighting efficiency equal to three feet at the bottom, 
especially on the lower floors. 

5. The light-admitting area of the windows should be 
not less than one fifth the area of the floor space. One 
fourth the floor area should be allowed in gloomy climates, 
smoky locations, and in places where the light is much 
obstructed by surrounding objects. 

Window requirements. These conditions are all met by 
having the windows on one side only, — the left ; by having 
them extend from about thirty or forty inches above the floor 
to as near the ceiling as the structure of the building will 



LIGHTING 33 

permit ; by having them begin some four or six feet from the 
front end and extend clear to the rear end of the room; and 
by having the divisions between them made to obstruct as little 
light as possible, preferably steel mullions beveled inwardly. 

Wall coloring. The ceilings down to the picture mold 
should be white or cream, to reflect the high light evenly 
down upon the desks. From the mold to the blackboard 
should be some soft green or tan. The floor, baseboard, and 
wall to the blackboard should be dull-finished and dark-toned. 
The desk tops likewise should be finished dull and dark. 

Window shades. In any room the lighting area which is 
necessary on a dark day is altogether too much on a bright 
day. Excessive light is as harmful as too little. Lighting 
efficiency is therefore largely a matter of shades and their 
management. A shade which cuts off the top light only is 
poor for either lighting or ventilating purposes. Those which 
roll from the bottom only are inconvenient and readily get 
out of order. Two shades rolling from the middle in both 
directions break up the mass of light into two separated 
blocks. Inside shutters and Venetian blinds are generally 
regarded as sources of unlimited trouble, though they have 
certain advantages. Outside blinds control the light only by 
cutting it off altogether or by cutting it up into a series of 
alternate bars of light and darkness. They are decidedly 
undesirable. The best solution seems to be the adjustable 
shade which is raised or lowered bodily as easily as it is 
rolled up or unrolled. There are several satisfactory forms 
of adjustable shade fixtures on the market, and the cost is 
very slight. Their value depends on the way they are used. 
They do not adjust themselves automatically to the constantly 
changing light. 

Which direction ? North light is best, because it is more 
even and it requires but little or no shading ; but it requires 
larger window space to provide against dark days, and the 



34 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

large north exposure makes heating more difficult. South 
light is hardest to control on bright days ; hence south rooms 
should be used, when practicable, for kindergartens, labora- 
tories, etc., where the sunshine is desirable but less book 
study is required. West rooms are best for primary grades 
which are dismissed about noon, and east rooms for those 
grades which are held to their desks later in the day. 

Remedying defective lighting. A room with windows 
badly arrranged can sometimes be improved with a little in- 
genuity. A typical frame country school with two widely 
separated windows on each side was quickly and attractively 
converted into a well-lighted room by simply moving the two 
windows from the right side and placing them between the 
two on the left. New windows may often be inserted be- 
tween old ones with little expense, and those on the wrong 
side can be permanently sealed or closed with perfectly 
opaque blinds. Any that may be in the front of the room 
must be shuttered so that not a chink of light gets through. 
Rear windows may well be retained for additional light on 
dark days. Often a glass door may be substituted for a 
solid one at little cost and much benefit. Prism glass placed 
in the upper sash will help to distribute the light. The ribs 
or prisms run vertically tend to throw the light to the dark 
ends of the room and run horizontally throw it up against 
the ceiling or across the room. 

Lighting limitations. If satisfactory light cannot be got 
to the children, by all means get the children to the light. 
Almost any light may be fairly good if movable seats are 
provided so that the children may adjust their work to the 
place and position in which it is best illuminated. The 
most perfect window-lighting arrangement cannot correctly 
illuminate all the- desks all the time if they are stationary. 
The most informal moving of chairs and benches to get the 
children near the windows is better than strained eyes. 



LIGHTING 35 

Books. Books which arc printed on paper with a very 
high gloss or in which the print used is too fine should 
not be used for continuous study. Eighteen-point (great 
primer) type should be used for the primary books and 
nothing smaller than eleven-point (small pica) or ten-point 
(long primer) for any books that children are to read. 

The teacher's opportunity. The earnest teacher will not 
be blind to his * duty and opportunity in the matter of his 
pupils' eyes. He will spare no effort or influence within 
his power to secure the correct construction of the building 
or any alteration necessary to good lighting. He will see that 
the shades are so manipulated and the children so seated as 
to secure the best light conditions for all. The constant 
movement of sun and clouds makes this a continuous re- 
sponsibility. The architect can only make good lighting 
possible. He cannot secure it day by day. Bright sunlight 
must never shine into a pupil's eyes nor across his desk. 
Much use of the eyes should never be required where the 
light is either glaring or insufficient. Defective eyes should 
be detected by use of the Snellen cards, which may be had 
from almost any state health or educational department. Par- 
ents should be urged to consult a reliable oculist and secure 
the necessary treatment or glasses to relieve any defects 
which may be discovered. These afflicted pupils should have 
special consideration, being placed where the lighting is best 
(not necessarily strongest), and should be relieved somewhat 
from the tasks most trying to the eyes and be permitted fre- 
quently to rest them completely. Pupils' headaches or a dull 

1 The lack of a pronoun of common gender, singular number, is always 
awkward in discussions of teachers and pupils. The current tendency to 
use the feminine in referring to the teacher while retaining the masculine 
in referring to the pupil seems to be justified on arithmetical grounds only. 
Surely no other apology for the use of the masculine pronoun than the 
grammatical rule is necessary in a work of this sort in which principals and 
superintendents are referred to as well as elementary teachers. 



36 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

feeling about the eyes should have careful consideration. 
Particularly in poorly lighted rooms, schedules of work 
should be so adjusted as to permit alternation of work 
which requires much use of the eyes and that which does 
not. All children should be encouraged to rest their eyes 
occasionally by closing them or looking at distant objects. 
They should be taught the hygiene and care of the eyes 
and warned against reading at home in a lying or other bad 
posture, in the dusk of the evening, or by any dim or un- 
steady light. They should be particularly warned against read- 
ing with the light in front, a practice which is very common 
and very harmful. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Procure a Snellen test card and make a careful test and 
record of the visual acuity of several persons.. 

2. Criticize the lighting of several rooms, good and bad, indi- 
cating all defects and possible remedies. 

3. Where could prism glass or ground glass be used to advan- 
tage ? What effects would be secured ? 

4. Where would you seat a nearsighted pupil ? Why ? 

5. Would there be any advantage to a farsighted pupil to be 
placed as far as possible from the blackboard ? What consideration 
should be given this pupil ? 

6. Prepare a scheme of colors for ceiling, walls, woodwork, and 
furniture of selected classrooms. What difference would you make 
between the coloring of a north and a south room ? 

READINGS 

Allen. Civics and Health, chap. vii. 

Burgerstein. School Hygiene, chap. ii. 

Dresslar. School Hygiene, chap. xv. 

O'Shea. Dynamic Factors in Education, chap. xvii. 

Rowe. Lighting of Schoolrooms. 

Shaw. School Hygiene, chap. ix. 

Terman. Hygiene of the School Child, chap. xiv. 



CHAPTER V 
HEAT AND VENTILATION 

Master-teachers and fresh air. Socrates taught in the 
streets, Plato in a grove ; Aristotle's school was called the 
Peripatetic, because he taught walking about among the trees ; 
the Stoics were named for the stoa, or porches, where their 
classes were conducted ; the Epicureans met in the gardens 
of Epicurus, and the Prince of Teachers taught by the sea- 
side and wayside. The world's greatest teachers have ever 
loved the freedom and the inspiration of the open. 

Outdoor classes. School excursions and open-air schools 
are among the most effective of our present-day teaching 
agencies. The best device for supplying fresh air to chil- 
dren is just to take them out into it. Why fear irregularity 
or informality ? It is the regularity and formality of our 
school settings that are deadening to inspiration. It is our 
shut-in habits that are abnormal and depressing. 

Any pleasant neighboring spot, somewhat shielded from 
distractions and interruptions, shaded from the too bright 
sunshine or sheltered from the too cold winds, should be a 
frequent place of resort for the classes of any school. A 
convenient band-stand, summerhouse, or group of seats in 
a city park, a waterside pavilion, or a quiet wharf, is worth 
more than much expensive equipment in getting a fine 
school spirit and large educative results. At one charming 
school a simple platform with roof supported on rustic posts 
of cedar, half hidden in the tall shrubbery and shady trees 
of the school grounds, constitutes a most useful and inex- 
pensive part of the equipment. Such an open-air schoolroom 

37 



38 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

could be built by the larger boys at any school. The 
plainest school-made tables and benches and a strip or two 
of movable blackboard to hang against the posts when 
needed are sufficient equipment. Such an outdoor room is 
not devoted to one grade or to a class of invalids. It is 
used by any grade when monotony, fatigue, or irritability 
lower the standard of work and prevent mental concentra- 
tion in the class. The class may remain but a few minutes 
for a drill lesson, or it may be for a study-period, or, with 
" furniture " pushed aside, they may engage in calisthenics, 
games, or dancing. 

Open-air rooms. Open-air rooms for the continuous use 
of tubercular and anaemic children are now regarded as 
essential in the construction of large modern schools. The 
uniformly gratifying results in the way of physical and 
mental gains on the part of all the afflicted children so pro- 
vided for have not only made the policy a permanent one 
throughout the civilized world but have raised a serious 
discussion of the question of similar provision for normal 
children. 

Window ventilation. Next best to getting the children 
out to the air is getting the air in to the children. It is too 
commonly supposed that because there are openings where 
the air might come into the room the air is struggling to 
get in. Having openings is one thing ; getting the air 
through them is another. When the rooms are not heated 
or artificially ventilated, exhaled air is warmer than the 
fresh and will therefore tend to rise. Openings at the top 
of the room for its egress are, then, as important as those 
lower down for the ingress" of fresh air. Ideal windows 
would be flush with the ceiling and open their whole 
length, offering not the slightest resistance to the flushing 
out of all air. Even openings at different levels give little 
assurance of sufficient circulation to meet the needs of a 







































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OPEN-WINDOW ROOMS 



Above, midwinter in an open-window room, Graham School, Chicago. 

l!elow, a classroom converted into an open-window room by means of 

draft screens, Moseley School, Chicago 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 39 

room full of children if no fan or breeze is driving. Open- 
ings on opposite sides of the room are more effective, espe- 
cially doors opening upon corridors through which the air 
sweeps freely. 

Window boards. Window boards are a very simple and 
effective device for permitting free circulation through the 
windows and yet preventing cold drafts from striking directly 
upon the children. A board, six to ten inches wide, is 
placed at the bottom just inside the inner stop. The win- 
dow may then be raised nearly to the top of the board : 
the current entering the room will be deflected upward by 
the board and also between the upper and lower sashes. A 
flower box in the window serves a similar function besides 
its other values. Glass window boards have the advantage 
of cutting off no light. In the open-window room of the 
Moseley School, Chicago, draft screens resembling inverted 
awnings of durable white goods are used in place of win- 
dow boards. These are made to be removed or raised and 
lowered easily and are used with windows wide open. 

Flushing and drafts. Whatever the system of ventilation 
or of heating and whatever the weather, occasionally during 
the school day and always when the room is being cleaned, 
the windows, especially at the top, and the doors should be 
thrown wide open and the room freely and thoroughly 
flushed out. Colds are not contracted from winds. A 
continuous draft on a small portion of the person may dis- 
turb the heat-regulating mechanism of the body and pro- 
duce local congestion with serious results. The remedy is 
not to lessen the air movement about the person but to 
increase it. As Terman forcibly puts the case : " Instead 
of fleeing from drafts we should seek them. As long as 
we are healthy, it is only the little draft, which cools but a 
small part of the body, that is injurious. The remedy for 
draft, therefore, is more draft, coupled with the healthy 



40 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

circulation that comes from sufficient exercise " (" Hygiene 
of the School Child," p. 161). 

Fresh air. Motionless, moistureless, lifeless indoor air 
rests like a curse on the average school. We attain it at 
enormous costs for air-tight buildings and elaborate thermo- 
static systems of suppressing vitality. 

Fresh air is the best-known preventive of anaemia, colds, 
tuberculosis, and other ills and contagions that school 
children are prone to contract. 

Fresh air is the most effective preventive of disorder, 
irritability, and friction in the management of a school. 

Fresh air dissipates fatigue, inattention, and nervousness. 

Fresh air is a large factor in cheerfulness, enthusiasm, 
good spirits, and school pride. 

Fresh air is indispensable to efficient and sustained 
mental activity. 

Fresh air is the cheapest, most abundant, most accessible, 
and most delightful commodity with which school authorities 
are concerned — and the most carefully excluded. 

What is fresh air ? By fresh air we mean that which is 
as nearly as possible like that outdoors on a fine, bracing, 
invigorating day. It is this for which the human machine 
has become adapted in the course of its evolution and in 
which it functions to best advantage. Devisers of school- 
ventilating systems have been assuming that essentials of 
good air are a high and uniform temperature and freedom 
from all appreciable currents, together with a low percent- 
age of carbon dioxide and impurities. Recent investigations 
have shown, on the contrary, that schoolroom conditions 
cannot produce sufficient carbon dioxide or other substances 
to be dangerous or to interfere materially with working effi- 
ciency, that high and uniform temperatures are undesirable, 
an'd that considerable motion in the atmosphere is particu- 
larly necessary. The ventilation problem is not one of 





TYPES OF SCHOOL WORK OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL WALLS 

A school-directed home garden (see p. 315) and a simply constructed out- 
door classroom (see p. 37) 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 41 

simply getting certain chemical or organic substances out 
of the air, although some of these in undue quantities may 
be deleterious, but is primarily one of getting physical con- 
ditions of the atmosphere adapted to the best functioning 
of the human organism. 

It might well be a school-management proverb that "the 
lack of fresh air is the root of all evil." For the want of fresh 
air countless children are suffering all manner of temporary 
and permanent ills and otherwise good teachers are being 
recorded as failures. Out of doors, in Nature's laboratory, 
where the green things are growing, an endless supply is 
being constantly purified, humidified, and put into proper 
circulation. It surrounds and bombards the schools. It is 
only necessary not to shut it out. 

Oxygen and energy. The power by which all study must 
be accomplished is child energy. Oxygen only can convert 
nutriment into energy. Vigorous brain action is dependent 
on an abundant supply of food and its ready oxidation. But 
this oxidation requires something quite different from mere 
inhalation and exhalation of air. It is equally necessary that 
the digestive processes make the nutritive materials ready 
for oxidation, that the circulatory system transport the 
munitions to every portion of the body, that the excretory 
agencies actively remove toxic and deleterious substances, 
that the neural and muscular cells which are to be ener- 
gized shall be vigorously functioning and, specifically, that 
the vasomotor and coordinated reflexes which automatically 
control the thermic states of the body shall have the sort 
of stimulation which is favorable for mental work. 

All this is necessary to convert oxygen into thought 
activity. To secure the combination, we need something 
more than mere " pure " air. There must be air in motion 
over the body and more vigorously through the lungs than 
is possible to one sitting stooped over a book. There must 



42 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

be frequent energetic and varied activity of the voluntary 
muscles. There must be vigorous functioning of the vital 
processes. There must be more or less stimulation of the 
complex temperature adjustments of the body by changes 
of surface temperature. 

Before we go into a discussion of the methods of ventila- 
tion, it will be well to get before us the requisites in the 
related problems of schoolroom heat and humidity. 

The real temperature problem. Uniformity of body tem- 
perature is undoubtedly a prime essential to health. The 
clinical thermometer is the physician's first test for abnormal 
conditions, and a slight variation from the normal is occa- 
sion for anxiety. But the thermometer under the tongue 
registers nearly the same for a healthy person whether one 
has been playing ball in July or riding through a snowstorm 
in January. The temperature that counts for physical wel- 
fare is regulated inside the body and is equally independent 
of weather variations and steam-heating plants. The heating 
problem, therefore, is not one of keeping the room at a con- 
stant temperature but of keeping the body's automatic ther- 
mic adjustments functioning. This is accomplished chiefly 
by the vasomotor reactions which direct the blood flow to 
the surface when the inner combustion is too great or sur- 
face radiation too slow, or which send the blood inward when 
heat production runs low or radiation high. The perfect 
functioning of these adjustments and the atmospheric en- 
vironment of a bracing day are the temperature conditions 
most favorable to profitable brain activity. 

The best school temperature for health and convenience 
is from 65 ° to 68° Fahrenheit. The story of the open-air 
schools, however, in which the frailest anaemic and tubercular 
children have grown well and strong under the rigors of 
northern winters without any artificial heat, has proved be- 
yond question that if suitable clothing and nourishment are 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 43 

provided, the matter of heat is of small consequence. A 
freezing temperature is entirely favorable to school work if 
adequate wraps are provided. 

Humidity. At a temperature of 68° air requires six times 
as much moisture as it does at 20 to maintain the same 
humidity. Thus when the cold air of outdoors is heated on 
entering the schoolroom it becomes relatively very dry. The 
atmosphere of Sahara is not nearly as dry as any air that has 
been heated thirty degrees without being moistened. We 
place wet garments by a stove to dry just because the heated 
air is so extremely active in reestablishing its humidity. In 
a schoolroom where humidifying has not been provided for, 
the only accessible moist surfaces at which the recently dried 
air can saturate its thirst are the mucous membranes of the 
pupils' air passages, their eyes and delicate skins. Depriv- 
ing these tissues of their normal dampness not only causes 
much discomfort but interferes with their functioning and 
renders them subject to serious disorders. 

While dry air is most to be guarded against, a high 
humidity with a high temperature prevents sweat evapora- 
tion, increases the temperature and circulation at the surface 
of the body, and thus interrupts the circulation of blood in 
the brain and vital organs, making the atmosphere feel op- 
pressive and rendering mental work difficult. On the other 
hand, a high humidity with a low temperature produces a 
<l clammy" atmosphere with its discomforts and dangers. It 
is important therefore that both high and low extremes of 
humidity be avoided. 

What is the ventilation problem ? With these facts be- 
fore us it is obvious that we must revise many popular ideas 
of artificial heating and ventilation. Under the sedentary 
conditions of school work, as ordinarily organized, less than 
one seventh of the air of the lungs is changed at any breath. 
Bad posture probably reduces even this very materially. The 



44 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

still, confined atmosphere of a classroom permits a jacket of 
inert air to cling like a cloak about the person, thus depriv- 
ing the skin of that atmospheric stimulation of the vaso- 
motor adjustments referred to above. The same conditions 
which thus reduce the supply of air accessible to the lungs 
likewise reduce the action of the vital organs and muscular 
system by which the oxygen becomes available for nourish- 
ment and energy. No mere mechanical system can produce 
conditions as favorable to health and vigor as simply keep- 
ing in close touch with the outdoors. But if a reasonable 
humidity is maintained, overheating avoided, physical exer- 
cise frequent and varied, posture good, deep breathing habit- 
ual, and the room frequently flushed out with fresh air from 
outdoors, almost any system that keeps the air moving and 
affords a temperature convenient for school work will be 
satisfactory. We may give attention here to a few of the 
simplest effective plans of heating and ventilation. 

Direct radiation. Direct radiation from a stove or open 
fire is healthful but very extravagant, because an astonish- 
ingly small percentage of the actual heat generated radiates 
into the room and that little is unevenly distributed. 

Gravity systems and the jacketed stove. The simplest 
and most economical plan of school heating and ventilation 
is the "gravity system." This name is applied to any 
arrangement which secures circulation by utilizing the dif- 
ference in weight between cold and warm air to move the 
currents and which supplies heat by warming the air as it 
enters. The jacketed stove is the most effective and eco- 
nomical gravity system for a single room. This consists of 
an ordinary heater, preferably of the tall, round type, inclosed 
in a cylindrical sheet-metal jacket about five feet high. The 
jacket stands off about two inches from the stove and is fas- 
tened tight to the floor. It is placed on a zinc mat or stove 
board, to facilitate cleaning and to protect the floor from 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 45 

falling coals. It is entirely open at the top and has a hinged 
door through which the stove is managed. Under the floor 
is a fresh-air duct leading from one side of the building and 
opening under the stove. It may be built of metal or boards 
but should have a smooth interior, offering no obstruction 
to the free flow of air or harbor for dirt or insects, and it 
should be screened to exclude birds, trash, etc. It should 
be placed so as to receive the air at some point free from 
dust or odors and if placed on the south side of the build- 
ing, the air will enter several degrees warmer in severe 
weather and thus effect a very important saving of fuel. 

As soon as the stove is heated the fresh air is warmed, 
rushes upward through the jacket, and rises to the top of 
the room. Here it spreads itself out and presses downward 
the air already in the room. Since only a certain amount of 
air can get into the room at a time, it is necessary to draw 
out the old in order that the new may come in.- The forced 
exit of the impure air is accomplished by using the other- 
wise wasted heat which goes up the chimney. The stove- 
pipe enters the flue seven to ten feet from the floor and 
extends at least two or three feet up through it. The hot 
pipe and smoke create a draft up through the flue, while 
an opening at the floor permits the air to enter from the 
room. Experiment has shown that the best circulation is 
attained by having this opening for the foul air outlet at 
the level of the floor and near the stove, which happens 
to be the most convenient place possible for it. As soon 
as the fire is lighted it begins automatically to force one 
current of air up through the jacket to the ceiling and 
draw another out through the flue from the floor, thus 
making a complete circulation. 

The stove should by all means be a large one. The net 
opening for either inlet or outlet should be not less than 
two square feet. The inside diameter of the flue should be 



46 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

at least three inches greater than that of the stovepipe 
which extends into it. On cold mornings it is well to cut 
off the fresh-air supply under the stove and open the jacket 
door for a half hour or more, while the air already in the 
room is being thoroughly warmed and the children are 
drying and warming their feet at the stove. Supplementary 
doors are sometimes provided in the jacket for additional 
foot-drying accommodations. Various adaptations make the 
plan available for any room or any flue. The jacket, duct, 
and flue may be made by local mechanics at the cost of a 
few dollars, or a complete outfit ready to install may be 
purchased from supply houses. 

Hot-air furnace. For two rooms or more, the same 
heating and ventilating effects as from the jacketed stove 
are attained with great saving of the space, fuel, dirt, and 
confusion incident to separate stoves by means of a fur- 
nace placed in the basement. In principle the furnace is 
merely a large stove with jacket closed at the top and 
forcing the fresh, warmed air through large ducts to the 
classrooms. The intake in the room should be six to 
eight feet from the floor on the side opposite the win- 
dows, or next the flues, and the foul-air outlet should be 
near the floor on the same side. The latter naturally opens 
into the stack through which the smoke pipe from the 
furnace passes. 

Too much emphasis cannot be put on having the fur- 
nace sufficiently large. Skimping here is very common and 
is the worst extravagance. A small furnace requires fre- 
quent feeding, necessitating almost constant janitor service 
and producing rapid fluctuations of temperature, with far 
greater consumption of fuel, destruction of the furnace, and 
danger to the children from coal gas, which will soon leak 
into the air supply under such management. Furthermore, 
small ducts or gratings largely filled up with scrollwork 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 47 

make necessary an impossibly rapid current through the 
passages in order to secure any considerable movement in 
the classroom. 

Ventilation standards. Expert authorities and state laws 
usually place the minimum of fresh air which should be 
supplied for each child which a schoolroom is to accommo- 
date at thirty cubic feet per minute. This means seventy- 
two thousand cubic feet per hour for an average classroom. 
If the net opening in the fresh-air passage is but a square 
foot, a gale of nearly fourteen miles per hour must pass this 
point to secure the necessary circulation. Treble the opening 
and the same result is secured with a moderate current. 

Precautions. Any gravity system needs careful oversight 
to guard against interruption by winds and weather. The 
fresh-air intake, like a chimney, may have to be shielded at 
times to prevent strong winds checking or even reversing 
the flow of the current. When a cold wind is blowing on 
the windows of the rooms on the north side and the sun 
shining brightly on the sheltered windows of the south 
side, both temperature and circulation are much higher in 
the south rooms. It is often necessary almost or quite to 
cut off the current to the south rooms in order to get any 
warm air from the furnace to enter the colder side of the 
house. Sometimes this is neglected, and the oversupply of 
warm air in the south room tempts the teacher to open the 
windows, whereupon the suction of the southbound winds 
draws a gale from the furnace directly out the windows and 
the north rooms are left to freeze. It is usually necessary 
that the warm-air supply be cut off from a room when the 
windows are opened. 

Forced circulation. To obviate the uncertainties of grav- 
ity currents, fans are installed in most buildings of more 
than four rooms. A large fan is usually placed in the 
basement and drives the fresh air over the furnace (plenum 



48 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

fan) or it may be placed in the foul-air exit near the roof 
(exhaust fan). In large buildings both may be used but, 
of the two, the plenum is the more effective. The arrange- 
ment of fresh-air and foul-air ducts is not different from 
that for the gravity circulation. A liberal supply of electric 
fans in the rooms, to keep the air agitated, would un- 
doubtedly greatly increase the value of any ventilating 
system. 

Larger systems. In very large buildings and where 
weather conditions are especially severe, it is necessary to 
supplement any warm-air plan of heating by means of some 
steam or hot- water radiation system. These, of course, do 
not ventilate. The choice as well as the installation of any 
such system on a large scale is a matter for experts. All 
heating systems are more or less variable and complex. 
Untold annoyance and unlimited waste in fuel and in the 
equipment itself are common through lack of intelligent 
management. Here we can only insist that unless a thor- 
oughly expert janitor is employed the principal should make 
a careful study of the most economical and efficient opera- 
tion of the plant and give it sufficient personal supervision 
to see that satisfactory results are attained. Inexpert jani- 
tors need supervision and training as truly as inexpert 
teachers and the children themselves. Time consumed in 
mastering the idiosyncrasies of a heating plant to which one 
is held in servitude is time wisely invested. 

Foot-drying. In any school-heating system there should 
be provision for warming and drying the feet of the chil- 
dren, preferably by special registers placed in the floor of 
the corridor. Pupils should not be restricted in the free 
use of these. Warm feet are necessary to good circula- 
tion and are far more effective than high temperatures 
in the schoolroom for getting the children warm and for 
avoiding colds, 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 



49 



Humidifying. To restore humidity, it is only necessary 
to introduce sufficient moisture into the warm-air supply 
duct, so that the air will take up all that its increased heat 
demands. This is ordinarily provided for by an open vessel 
of water on the top of the jacketed stove or a fiat pan pro- 
vided in practically all furnaces, over which the current of hot 
air passes. If this is insufficient, and it will be if the furnace 
is too small and the currents are forced through it rapidly, it 
is easily supplemented by thick cloths hanging over wire sup- 
ports placed above the pan. The cloths act like wicks, draw- 
ing up the water as used and affording a larger evaporating 
surface. Neglect is the worst foe to humidifying arrangements. 
Water pans are often allowed to remain dry and even to rust 
out without replacement. Attention to them is a duty of 
the janitor which the principal, having in mind the dangers 
of dried-out air, should be untiring in following up. 

Testing the air. The sling psychrometer, recommended 
and fully described by the United States Weather Bureau, 1 
may be used to determine the humidity with accuracy. It is 
cheap and its use constitutes an admirable scientific exercise. 
But for practical purposes during school hours the best 
method of making sure of adequate humidity is to look after 
the water pan and to keep in close touch with the well- 
humidified air out of doors. 

Several methods have been devised for testing the im- 
purity of the air in a room. The Fitz, the Wolpert, and the 
Cohen and Appleyard tests measure the impurity of the air 
in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide which it contains. 
The koniscope and the sugar tests determine the impurity 
by the amount of dust and the number of bacteria in a 
given volume of the atmosphere. 2 

1 Bulletin No. 2jj, Department of Agriculture. 

2 See Dresslar, School Hygiene, p. 170, and National Ed:ication 
Association Proceedings, 1911, p. 977. 



50 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

These tests have their value for research and scientific 
experiment. For practical use in the busy classroom, nature's 
tests, the sense of smell and the feel of closeness, are far 
more effective. Owing to the readiness with which these 
senses are fatigued or become "adapted" one does not 
readily detect the gradual changes of the atmosphere in 
which he is confined. Principals, supervisors, janitors, and 
particularly the pupils themselves should cultivate a sensi- 
tivity to unwholesome conditions, and as they pass in and 
out of the rooms serve as official indicators of the need of 
ventilation. It would raise any community's standard of 
health and refinement if all children were made " fresh- 
air cranks." We very readily become habituated to either 
fresh-air or foul-air conditions. 

In concluding this rather long chapter we may sum- 
marize some of the more practical points for the guidance 
of teachers. 

Summary of practical rules, i . Study carefully the heat- 
ing and ventilating system you have in order to secure what- 
ever efficiency it is capable of affording. 

2. Unremitting vigilance in the management of the 
furnace, stoves, and flues is necessary to satisfactory results. 

3. Instead of giving thought to tests for dangerous 
atmospheric conditions, keep so far on the safe side that 
problems as to the purity of the air will never arise. Air 
and water are cheap. 

4. Air will humidify itself if abundant water is supplied 
as it is heated. Outdoor air is always safe and accessible. 

5 . Occasionally throw open doors and windows and flush 
out the room while children are in motion or out at play. 

6. Always have the room flushed out during and after 
sweeping or dusting. 

7. Low temperatures with sufficient wraps are safer than 
high temperatures. 



HEAT AND VENTILATION 51 

8. Do not let children sit with damp or cold feet or 
where a current of air strikes upon a portion of the body. 
These practices are dangerous. 

9. Posture, breathing, and exercise have incomparably 
more to do with ventilating values for the child than all 
the windows or ventilating systems ; therefore : 

(a) Train the children to sit erect and afford them every 
aid and opportunity to do so easily and comfortably. 

(/>) Have frequent breathing exercises and cultivate habits 
of deep breathing among the children. 

(c) Have frequent periods of active physical exercise, such 
as manual work, calisthenics, singing, marching, games, or 
outdoor play. 

10. Whenever the class (or teacher) becomes dull, de- 
pressed, or irritable, it is likely that fresh air and vigorous 
movement are needed. Open the windows, exercise, or get 
outdoors if practicable. 

1 1 . Arrange to take the class out into the open for work 
as much as possible. Get them accustomed to it, so that the 
excitement of the occasion will not consume their attention. 

12. So long as the air and the children are freely and 
abundantly in motion and outdoor air has free access to 
the children there need be no occasion for anxiety as to 
ventilation. 

13. Constant instruction and daily training should be 
directed as forcibly as possible toward establishing those 
habits of ventilation and exercise which make for a vigorous 
and energetic race. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Make an abstract of your state laws or official regulations 
with respect to the problems of this chapter. 

2. Write a criticism of your school building as to its heating 
and ventilation system. 



52 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

3. Determine the net area of opening, at its smallest point, of 
the fresh-air duct leading to the furnace (or stove). At what rate 
must the current of air pass this point to supply thirty cubic feet 
per minute for each child in school ? 

4. Make a similar test of the fresh-air duct leading to your 
classroom. 

5. If an anemometer is available, measure the actual rate of 
these currents. 

6. Work out a diagram showing the actual course of the cur- 
rents of air in your schoolroom on a cold day with the ventilating 
system in use. (Smoking blotting paper or punk will indicate 
the movements of the air.) 

READINGS 

Ayres. Open Air Schools. 

Burgerstein. School Hygiene, chap. hi. 

Burrage and Bailey. School Sanitation and Decoration, chap. iii. 

Dresslar. "American Schoolhouses," Bulletin No. j, United States 

Bureau of Education, tqio. 
Dresslar. School Hygiene, chaps, x-xiv. 
Kingsley. Open-Air Crusaders. 
Shaw.. School Hygiene, chap. iv. 
Terman. Hygiene of the School Child, chap. x. 



CHAPTER VI 

SEATS AND DESKS 

Seats of the past. In classic times the youth had only 
his knees on which to rest his scroll or waxen tablets. For a 
seat he may have had a plain bench, but more commonly he 
had the floor, pavement, or grass. However, the lack was 
not serious, for reading and writing played a small part in his 
education. In medieval days the monasteries were equipped 
with benches capable of more or less physical torture, but 
those who sought physical development and believed in bodily 
vigor spurned literary studies altogether. Medieval writing 
desks were, of course, of no standard shape or style, but for 
those who wrote much they were usually pulpit-like affairs 
with tops sloping from thirty to forty-five degrees and com- 
monly made for writing while standing. In pioneer American 
days the split log, with pegs driven into auger holes for legs, 
was not an uncommon type of bench, while a slab supported 
against the wall of the room served for a desk. This was 
succeeded by the clumsy and comfortless homemade board 
desk of various designs. As commerce entered the field of 
school-desk making, the ideal has seemed to be rigidity. 
Much has been done in working out a strong and attractive 
steel construction with a high finish and tasteful lines. As 
wood gave way before cast iron, so the latter is surrendering 
the field to steel or semi-steel. 

"The bugbear of school hygiene." The making of desks 
of sanitary, durable, and attractive construction has kept 
pace with other school progress. But in the matter of 
meeting the hygienic needs of the pupil who is occupying 

53 



54 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the seat, recent authorities have expressed the general 
sentiment thus: 

The bugbear of school hygiene for a long time has been the 
school desk. — Burgerstein, " School Hygiene " 

On the hygienic requirements of school desks . . . fundamental 
requirements have scarcely been touched. It seems an indisputable 
fact that the most serious defect of the average school-desk is that 
it subjects the pupil to a posture that fosters spinal curvature, 
cramped chest and defective vision. . . . Unless desk tops are set 
at proper angle, children will not and cannot sit erect to do their 
work. They will bend over their work day after day unless we 
devise a practicable desk top that will necessitate erect normal 
posture for all their work. — Dresslar, " School Hygiene " 

School desks as at present made are undoubtedly demanding 
abnormal positions and making them habitual. — Cyclopedia of 
Education 

Essentials of a good desk. The features to be sought in 
an ideal desk include the following : 

Construction should be strong, durable, and free from 
corners or irregularities which will catch dust. As already 
indicated, admirable progress has been made in these respects. 

Finish should be sanitary, hygienic, and in good taste. 
The best desks of to-day have a fine dead-black enamel 
finish on the metal and a dull, soft-toned finish on the wood. 
The use of light-colored woods finished in bright tones and 
glossy surface is not in good taste or in harmony with the 
studious purposes of the schoolroom unless perhaps in pri- 
mary grades. Such finish reflects the light in a manner 
trying to the eyes and lessens the efficient illumination of a 
book resting upon it. 

Desks should be single and separate. Double desks are 
now tolerated only in cheaply equipped schools. The desk 
which is attached to the seat in front is hardly less objec- 
tionable than that intended for two children. In each case 



SEATS AND DESKS 55 

many annoyances arise, concentration is interfered with, and 
there- are obvious sanitary disadvantages. 

The scat should be narrower than the desk. This makes 
for better posture and allows more room for the child to rise 
and for exercises without unnecessarily wide aisles. Seats 
should be of the chair or saddle type. The pronounced 
double curve with a ridge near the front produces pressure 
on the nerves and blood vessels just above the knee or else 
tends to slide the buttocks forward, and often does both. It 
also twists the spine severely if the child is seated sidewise 
for writing, thus tending to develop spinal curvature. 

Backs should be adjustable as to height and as to slant. 
They should not be as high as the shoulder blades nor 
touch the hips. They should support only the small of the 
back. They should be practically solid, with no uneven ridges 
or separate slats pressing upon the back. They should have 
a vertically convex curve with possibly a slight horizontal 
concavity. A slight resilience to the back will afford great 
relief to tired pupils and conserve for school work much 
energy ordinarily expended in resisting spinal jars. The 
common type of back is rigid, curves away from the small 
of the back, supports the shoulder blades, and cooperates 
with the seat in pushing the hips forward. 

The desk top should be adjustable for different kinds of 
work. For modeling and most sorts of handwork a per- 
fectly level top is desirable. For writing there may well be 
a slant of less than ten degrees and a " minus distance," or 
projection over the seat, of about two inches. For reading, 
the book should be some six inches higher than the writing 
level and slightly forward of the edge of the seat, and the 
desk top should have a slant of about forty-five degrees. 
The size and shape of the child, the size of the book and 
the print, the condition of the eyes, and the light condi- 
tions make the ideal position somewhat variable. Numerous 



56 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

designs for adjustable desk tops have appeared in this country 
and Europe during the last half century. Few of them have 
been able to hold a place on the market. Most of them 
were too complicated and cumbrous to be practicable. All 
have failed chiefly in that they did. not support the book in 
the position where it should be for reading. Merely to tilt 
the top accomplishes little or nothing. It must be tilted, 
thrust forward, and raised and should hold the book in 
place. To be practicable, all this must be done in a single, 
easy, and silent movement, the parts being so constructed 
that they will not readily break, wear out, or get out of order. 

The book box should be dust-proof and might well be thief- 
proof. The ordinary bookshelf under the desk top is in the 
way of the knees, cannot be readily seen or kept in order, 
is inconvenient and insanitary, and encourages interference 
by other pupils with the owner's possessions. The hinged 
top has some advantages, but it cannot be opened without 
moving everything from the top, the lid may be used as a 
screen for mischief, and the box is still in the way of the 
knees. The book drawer under the seat, common to movable 
chair-desks, is a great improvement in all these respects. 
This closes tight and may be made to lock. When it is open 
it is in full view of the child as he sits at his desk and when 
closed is entirely out of the way. Whatever the style of the 
book box, an unending duty of the teacher is to see that 
it is properly kept. Each book, tablet, and pencil should 
have its place and be kept only there while habits of neat- 
ness are being established. It is disgraceful to find books 
destructively jammed inside of each other or with a month's 
accumulation of trash behind them. 

Inkwells should be nonbreakable, noncorrosive, easy to fill 
and to clean, and such that they cannot get out of order. 
Many kinds advertising these virtues are on the market. 
The better ones are satisfactory if they are cared for, but 



SEATS AND DESKS 57 

none can keep itself In order. Vigilance and supervision 
are the price of satisfaction here as elsewhere. With the 
increasing use of fountain pens it is desirable that a well 
be used which does not leave an unsightly hole in the top 
of the desk if permanently removed. Unused wells — ink 
and otherwise — are ever causing trouble. 

Movable desks are now largely used for primary and 
special classes. These are movable chairs each having its 
own desk-top or writing surface suspended by some more or 
less successful device. They are gradually replacing fixed 
desks in many schools and will doubtless be in general use 
ultimately for all grades. The projecting tops tend to render 
some of them quite unstable. Those which fall over easily are 
a source of annoyance and even of danger in case of panic. 
The whole idea of children's seats being screwed immovably 
to the floor in rigid lines is repugnant to the modern spirit 
of school study and government. Group seating should be 
possible to make group teaching fully successful. Movable 
seats may be arranged in two or more distinct groups, sepa- 
rated as far as desired ; they may be massed in different 
parts of the room, gathered about the front for demonstra- 
tions, faced in different directions, arranged in a circle or 
amphitheatrical form, or pushed to the walls, leaving the 
room free for games, folk-dancing, and the like. For pri- 
mary grades they are becoming almost indispensable. They 
make the classroom available for community center work of 
various kinds, and by this increased usefulness of the school 
building will doubtless prove an actual economy. 

For practical economy, a movable desk which may be 
readily converted from a good school desk into an equally 
good auditorium seat has decided advantages. It makes it 
possible to convert any classroom into a social gathering 
room or a lecture room for adult evening classes. With 
such seats an auditorium may readily be used for either 



58 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

class or gymnasium purposes, or two classrooms may be 
thrown together into a very good auditorium, since both the 
facing and the spacing of the seats is easily changed. 

HeigJit adjttstment of both seat and desk to the needs 
of the individual child is available in many of the better- 
grade desks and is in general demand. All seem to have 
the inevitable objection that the adjustments will become 
loose and squeaky in the course of time and that teachers 
do neglect the adjusting unless constantly supervised. If 
the desks are readily movable from room to room and an 
abundant assortment of sizes is provided, very few adjust- 
able-height desks, if any, need be provided. Otherwise at 
least one fourth of the desks in a room should by all means 
be adjustable in order to avoid serious physical strain upon 
the children who do not fit the desks. The height of the 
seat, according to Dresslar, should ordinarily be two sevenths 
of the height of the child ; the height of the desk top 
(front edge at writing slant) should be three sevenths, plus 
an inch in the upper grades or plus half an inch in primary 
grades. Owing to decided differences in the shape of grow- 
ing children, this should undoubtedly be corrected for each 
child separately. A long-legged growing boy and a roly-poly 
girl are proportioned on quite different plans. 

The hygiene of sitting. A healthful sitting position de- 
mands that both hips and shoulders should be pushed back 
and the small of the back pushed forward. This posture 
expands the thoracic and abdominal cavities and encourages 
the free activity of all the vital organs. It strengthens the 
back and abdominal muscles. It practically necessitates deep 
breathing and makes it a habit. No ventilating system can 
possibly be as large a factor in getting good air into the lungs 
of children as a seat which causes them to sit with chest 
expanded. The system may ventilate the room, but it is 
the posture that ventilates the child. If the seat, back, and 



SEATS AND DESKS 59 

desk top are adapted for it, this erect posture is the most 
comfortable possible and can be longer sustained without 
fatigue than any other. 

The common type of seat and back tends to push both 
hips and shoulders forward. In fact, the structure of the 
spine is such that both alike will go forward, compressing 
the thorax and abdomen, or both will go backward, expand- 
ing these cavities. Let the reader try pushing the shoulders 
forward and the hips back, or vice versa. The effect of the 
usual desk is the gradual sliding down and doubling up so 
familiar to every teacher and pupil. Not only does this com- 
press lungs, heart, and digestive organs, suppressing their 
functioning and weakening their resistance to disease, but 
the spine, suspended from its two ends, tends to sag into 
a permanent curvature, resulting in stooped shoulders and 
a shambling gait. 

If one sits erect, with book lying on the ordinary desk 
top, the letters are too far away for proper visual focus and 
are enormously foreshortened, with corresponding illegi- 
bility and eyestrain. If he stand the book on end, he must 
use both hands to hold it and slide down in the seat to 
reduce the visual distance and the foreshortening. If he 
lean over the desk to get the right distance, there is severe 
strain on the back and neck muscles. In his natural and 
rightful efforts to relieve this strain he rests his head on his 
hands, with his eyes about eight inches from the book, neces- 
sitating a severe strain of convergence, shading his book 
with his arms, cramping the vital organs, bending spine, and 
relaxing the supporting muscles. The most perfect lighting 
is wasted when the book is not held in proper relation to the 
eye and to the light. The correct position of the book places 
it perpendicular to the line of vision, with the light shining 
squarely upon the page, and fourteen to sixteen inches from 
the eye, varying with the size of print and acuity of vision. 



60 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Seating and posture training. Undoubtedly children need 
training in good posture irrespective of the shape or adjust- 
ment of the seats, but even incessant nagging by the teacher 
for one position is ineffective training as against the nag- 
ging of tired nature for any position but that one. Where 
hygienic seats are not provided, it is even more imperative 
that frequent change of work and position be provided in the 
schedule and by the teacher's methods. The old-fashioned 
recitation benches at the front of the room, however uncom- 
fortable in themselves, may afford considerable relief through 
mere change of position. Nervous and irritable children 
suffer serious injury from misfit and uncomfortable seats. 
Spinal curvature, anaemic conditions, weak eyes, and all 
sorts of troubles in discipline are some of the evils which 
are aggravated by bad seating. Cushions, foot rests, or what- 
ever may reduce the waste of energy in nature's protests 
against uncomfortable confinement to nonadjustable seats 
should not be denied. However faithful the teacher's ad- 
monitions, children lack muscular strength to sit erect for 
any considerable length of time. This weakness of back 
muscles is fostered by the usual method of seating but 
overcome by habituation to seats correctly formed. 

Renovating defaced desks. There are still some schools 
where children have so little interest in their work and so 
little respect for public property, so little realization that it 
is their own property, that the marking and carving of 
desk tops continue. In others the hieroglyphic inscriptions 
of past ages of pupils yet disfigure the furniture and dis- 
courage efforts to keep the room appearing well. By de- 
voting fifteen minutes to scraping the desk tops a most 
admirable lesson in manual training, as well as in thrift 
and in property values, is taught, and a material increase in 
value of school equipment is accomplished. Each child is 
equipped with a piece or two of broken window glass and 



SEATS AND DESKS 61 

a little sandpaper. Where the cuts are very deep, the jani- 
tor or a large boy with a plane should supplement their 
efforts. A fresh coat of varnish stain applied on Friday 
evening will be ready for use by Monday morning. The 
boys of one town school more than paid for a good 
manual-training outfit by renovating old desks which the 
school authorities were about to throw away. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Observe a roomful of children studying. What proportion 
of them assume a hygienic posture at their work and for what 
proportion of the day ? 

2. Describe the positions the children take in order to relieve 
eyestrain and fatigue of the back muscles. 

3. On how many of the books is the light falling squarely or so 
as to illuminate adequately ? 

4. What is the usual angle between the book and the child's 
line of vision ? 

5. What proportion are sitting with the small of the back curved 
backward and the internal organs compressed ? 

6. Ask the children to take a deep breath and note the change 
of posture necessary to do so. 

7. Arrange a comfortable seat with a restful support for the 
small of the back. Then provide a support for your book in the 
correct reading position, sixteen inches from the eye, at right 
angles to the line of vision and with the light shining squarely 
upon it. What advantages would there be in having children do 
all their reading in such a position ? 

READINGS 

Bancroft. The Posture of School Children, chap. xxiv. 
Burgersteix. School Hygiene, chap. iv. 
Dresslar. School Hygiene, chap. v. 
Term am. Hygiene of the School Child, p. 8i. 



CHAPTER VII 

APPARATUS 

Two ways of wasting. There is as little economy in pay- 
ing teachers salaries and denying them the apparatus neces- 
sary to make their work effective as there is in employing 
any other class of workers and denying them requisite tools. 
About sixty per cent of the cost of the schools is paid for 
teachers. Five dollars expended on apparatus for every hun- 
dred paid the teachers would be invested at one hundred per 
cent profit if it increased teaching efficiency only ten per 
cent. The actual average expenditure for the purpose is 
probably well within one per cent of the salaries, while it is 
evident that the use of apparatus often adds as much as fifty 
per cent to the value of the teaching. A niggardly policy as 
to equipment thus wastes much of the school funds. 

But there is another aspect to this problem of waste. 
Much of the apparatus on the market is more profitable for 
the dealer than for anyone else. Prices are often exorbitant 
and educative values slight. The mode of purchase is too 
often such as to make people suspicious of the wisdom of 
the investment. Shrewd and extremely agreeable agents of 
the supply houses have brought about the purchase of vast 
quantities of charts and other equipment either totally worth- 
less or practically so for the teachers and schools to which 
it was supplied. School boards, professing no technical 
knowledge, properly call upon the educators for a statement 
of their needs. The teachers, regarding it as a mark of effi- 
ciency to get everything possible for their schools, have 
occasionally named amounts as large as they dared or listed 

62 



APPARATUS 63 

everything in the supply company's catalogue which there 
was a remote chance of using or getting. Some things are 
" recommended " out of mere curiosity or a vague idea that 
they would be nice things to have. Expert educators, like 
other experts, are sometimes tempted to give advice which 
the laity is in no position to question but which is not based 
on a practical business consideration of the relation between 
the client's need and his available means. Ambitious teach- 
ers should remember that efficiency is attained by economy 
of expenditure as truly as by magnitude of results. An 
honest saving attitude should insure their asking for only 
the materials that they will use and their using the materials 
which they get. Teachers and officials should especially be 
on their guard against the deplorable tendency to regard 
a "public job" as legitimate opportunity for undue profit. 
Printers, contractors, and dealers, often and without shame, 
expect this form of graft and resent watchful economy on 
the part of the buyer for the public. But for the frequent 
exceptions it would seem superfluous to say that common 
honesty demands that a teacher intrusted with selecting 
equipment, should use the same watchfulness and strictness 
that he would if he himself were to foot the bill. 

The useful and the useless. Equipment is likely to be 
more appreciated by the children and more profitably used 
by the teachers if acquired gradually, a few pieces at a time 
as needed, than if a "complete outfit," selected without 
reference to the particular class, is " installed " all at once. 
Simple equipment which will accomplish the purpose is far 
more educative than the more elaborate. There is an in- 
creased teaching value in the fact that the pupil sees just 
how each part is made and put together and a still greater 
value if he makes or assembles it himself. Elaborate in- 
struments tend to destroy the value of a class demonstration 
by losing the experiment in the instrument. Instruments of 



64 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

precision for quantitative science work ; globes and maps 
which must be accurate to be useful ; charts or models for 
study in lieu of objects ; art models which must always be 
true art to be valuable ; practical time-saving contrivances 
entering only indirectly into the teaching, such as devices for 
sharpening pencils, ruling, cleaning, facilitating the gathering, 
dissecting, and preserving of specimens, — these things it is 
economy to buy just so far as they will be used and cared for. 

Charts for teaching, reading, writing, or spelling are often 
worthless. The same is true of chart outlines of grammar, 
civics, arithmetic, or any outlines which do for the children 
the very organizing which it is the highest function of teach- 
ing to get the children to do. Such charts encourage stilted 
and deductive teaching at just the point where inductive 
development and abundant freedom should prevail. The live 
teacher and the blackboard are incomparably better for almost 
any phase of teaching the fundamentals. Education is accom- 
plished only by the pupil's thinking, and any apparatus which 
purports to supply the thinking predigested should be re- 
garded as a thought preventive. Textbooks may well provide 
forms for outlines, and teachers can do no better reviewing 
than working up outlines into chart form in class. A ready- 
made organization and a stimulus to organization should be 
regarded as at opposite poles of teaching value. 

Pupil-made apparatus. A very great deal of the apparatus 
should be made by the children themselves. It should never 
be forgotten that making apparatus or assembling it is as 
genuinely educative as any other task at which a pupil is 
likely to be engaged, and the construction of it is usually 
as directly instructive as any lecture, study, or experiment 
in connection with which it is used. Making the apparatus 
is so much more important than having it that a stock of 
simple parts which may readily be assembled in different 
ways for different purposes is to be preferred to an outfit of 



APPARATUS 65 

distinct and perfected pieces all ready for use. Lack of 
time is not a valid objection to the preference for home- 
made equipment, since time can be no better spent than 
in making it. With a more elastic schedule and organi- 
zation, it is not hard to find time for many things which 
at first appear impossible. The brighter pupils arc in need 
of occupation for spare time to keep them out of mischief. 
Others simply cannot learn the abstract principles without 
much of the concrete manual construction. If teachers 
would but cease hurrying to " get over the ground " and 
using themselves up in the futile grading-grind or in the 
"preparing for experiments" in which pupils have no part 
but to "see the thing go off," they could plan to make the 
preparing as educative as the going off and give their pupils 
the benefit of both. A wise teacher, instead of spending 
an hour before the class getting ready and an hour after- 
ward in putting things away or keeping the class waiting 
while he performs the instructive preparation work, will so 
adjust the classes that some pupil or small group will be 
free to set up the apparatus for the class experiment and 
another to clean and put away the parts afterward. Well- 
organized groups can do these things quickly in the class 
period, especially in high-school " laboratory periods." The 
difference between an expert and a laborer is that the 
laborer works his hands and his heels to save working his 
head, while the expert makes use of his head first and 
most. Many teachers seem striving to bring their occupa- 
tion entirely within the class of common labor. Even the 
consciences of the conscientious ones seem to drive their 
hands and perfunctory brain processes rather than their 
higher judgment. When their doing so robs the child of 
opportunities for learning, these supposedly conscientious 
ones are pedagogically as great sinners as those lazy ones 
who do too little. 



66 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Instruments of precision. Obviously, the whole purpose 
of any piece of apparatus is to work. To the extent in which 
the teacher's time or labor or ready-made apparatus is needed 
to this end these must be provided or the experiment omitted. 
Telling what ought to have happened if it had come out 
right is best done without any apparatus. Object lessons in 
failures are worse than none at all. Experiments that re- 
quire delicate and complex apparatus are not necessary or 
pedagogically wise in elementary courses. Advanced courses 
are a very different matter. Instruments of precision must 
necessarily be precise, and delicate measurements cannot be 
made with crude equipment. But nature and the everyday 
facts of industry and life afford such a wealth of experiments 
of the most instructive sort that elementary science classes 
have little need for the sort of experiment that pupils cannot 
set up or find already set up and practically operative in the 
neighborhood. 

Familiar contrivances. Some of the ordinary commercial 
electric and mechanical contrivances should be made familiar 
because of their direct practical interest and importance. 
The National Education Association has secured the publica- 
tion and free distribution to members, by interested manu- 
facturing concerns, of a series of charts and monographs 
showing the principles and construction of the sewing ma- 
chine and certain familiar electrical apparatus. This valuable 
and suggestive series indicates that many ordinary instru- 
ments and machines, accessible almost anywhere, might be 
so used. A typewriter, electric fan, automobile, the tele- 
phone, call bells, clocks, spectacles, microscope, a swing, a 
warehouse truck, furnace, radiator, refrigerator, ice-cream 
freezer, or any other familiar instrument or machine is an 
ideal point of beginning for lessons in physics. Things 
that are in actual use and demonstrating their worth daily 
have peculiar value as teaching apparatus. 



APPARATUS 67 

Good tools. It is important also that the children be sup- 
plied with adequate tools for making well and easily the 
things they are required to make. A good equipment of 
simple wood-working and metal-working tools and a supply 
of stock materials can be bought for the cost of a very 
few special instruments for demonstrating single principles. 
There should be adequate equipment to demand of the chil- 
dren that whatever work they do shall be done neatly and 
accurately. Workmanlike products should be required as 
far as possible, but these are possible only with good tools 
well kept. 

Primary materials. For primary reading, phonics, and 
number work the sight or " flash " cards are quite valuable. 
They are supplied, at little or no cost, in connection with 
some primers. But a child by making such a card will re- 
member what is on it better than he would by seeing it 
many times ; and the card which a classmate made has a 
meaning which a bought one cannot have. Even first-graders 
can trace over the teacher's letters with brush or crayon, the 
neatest cards being retained for permanent- class use. A set 
of large rubber-stamp types may be used by the children in 
making cards and charts. Restless children of older grades 
are delighted with the "busy work" of making these cards 
for the little ones. With large sheets of wrapping paper the 
teacher and pupils may make charts, and these homemade 
charts have a vital significance that ready-made ones never 
can have. Even if a child has not the actual training of 
making it, he feels that it belongs to his class and that it 
is a help in his learning. 

Arithmetic measures. For arithmetic there should be a 
liberal supply of the standard weights and measures, and 
these should be made use of for every possible purpose. 
Foot rules and yardsticks and meter sticks, duly subdivided, 
should grow familiar through constant use as pointers and 



6S SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

rulers. Quart cups and peck measures may well be used 
constantly and consciously as containers for every practicable 
purpose. There will then be little to teach regarding them. 
There may also be cube-root blocks where this topic is taught. 
Beyond these little if anything should be bought. All sorts 
of counters, even to an abacus, may be very profitably pre- 
pared by the children themselves. Geometrical forms should 
be constructed out of stiff paper as class exercises. The 
materials for arithmetic teaching are at hand everywhere in 
the very things to which arithmetic is intended to be applied. 
Maps. A good set of maps, clear and not too detailed, 
should be provided in every classroom. During the days or 
weeks that a continent is being studied, its map should be 
before the pupils' eyes constantly. There should be a simi- 
larly vivid map of the state, county, or town. Few pieces 
of equipment are more useful than outline blackboard maps. 
These can be purchased on cloth blackboard which rolls up 
as an ordinary map. They should be used very extensively 
for drills and reviews and in almost every sort of geography 
or history recitation with the aid of colored crayon in the 
hands of the children. A globe of about twelve inches diam- 
eter and a blackboard globe should also be accessible. The 
best relief maps are so preposterously out of proportion and 
out of all semblance to the things which they are supposed 
to represent that they are of little use as models. Relief 
maps may be made by the class with some benefit by using 
a mixture of salt and flour, provided their disproportions 
are appreciated. The sand table likewise can readily be 
made by the pupils but should be used with caution. In 
the presence of natural phenomena, that are abundant wher- 
ever water falls or runs, illustrating erosion by means of the 
sand table is a pitiful makeshift. Every creek, stream, gully, 
or even a back yard after a heavy rain is a hundred times 
better than the sand table. 



APPARATUS 69 

Several particularly valuable series of maps, which should 
be freely used in the schools, may be had at a nominal 
price from the United States Government. These include 
the sectional topographic maps furnished by the United 
States Geologic Survey, the pilot charts of the Hydrographic 
Office, the meteorological charts and the daily weather maps 
of the Weather Bureau and the maps of the Land Office 
and Post Office departments. 

Stereopticon. Some satisfactory form of stereopticon or 
projectoscope should be a part of the equipment of every 
school, if possible. With this there should be a constantly 
growing accumulation of the best illustrative slides and pic- 
tures attainable for the stud)' of geography, history, litera- 
ture, art, science, and every other subject which can be 
made to appeal through visual representation. The National 
Geographical Magazine is particularly useful. A moving- 
picture machine is, of course, desirable, but the expense of 
getting the high-grade educational films is still so great, 
especially of getting them at times when they will correlate 
well with the studies, that their service must be mainly for 
social-center uses supplementary to the courses of instruction 
rather than an integral part of them. 

Library. The school library is now so universally recog- 
nized as an essential part of the school as to need no dis- 
cussion. Provision should be made not only for bookcases 
or shelves in which the books will be well protected but for 
an adequate cataloguing and charging system. One excel- 
lent measure of a teacher's efficiency is the extent to which 
his pupils make use of the working part of the library ; but 
to make any extensive use possible there must be a working 
part, and that means a live, growing library, closely correlated 
with the course of study. 

Museum. A school museum, though less common as yet, 
should be a most valuable adjunct of every school library. 



yo SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

This should be incidentally a storage and display room for 
special apparatus not in regular use, whether purchased or 
homemade. It should contain the constantly growing col- 
lections of relics, biological specimens, products, minerals, 
pressed leaves, flowers, or butterflies ; also models, illustrative 
material, and specimens of the best drawings and written 
work of each year. It should grow not only by additions 
but by substitution of better specimens for poorer ones. 
It should represent the enthusiasm and industry of the 
school rather than mere expenditure by the authorities. 
Thus it will serve as a constant stimulus to intelligent 
collecting and to excellence in achievement. No greater 
reward should stimulate the child than the prospect of 
having his specimens or his work placed in the permanent 
museum. A system of labeling should be adopted which 
will in itself be a standard of neatness and which will give 
the scientific classification or other useful data, the date of, 
accession, and particularly the name of the maker, collector, 
or contributor. The collection may include anything from 
primary spelling lists to traveling art exhibits, or from a 
collection of postage stamps to a manufacturer's exhibit 
of agricultural machinery. 

Phonograph. A good phonograph which will play the best 
standard records must now be regarded as an almost indis- 
pensable adjunct of a well-equipped school. Its uses are so 
numerous, entertaining, and instructive as to make it a most 
profitable investment. Routine marching of classes ; regular 
accompaniments for class singing, indoor and outdoor games, 
gymnastics, calisthenics and folk-dancing ; vocal and instru- 
mental instruction and community concerts, — for all of these 
this instrument is invaluable. 

Playground equipment. Playground equipment likewise 
adds tremendously to the interest and power of the school. 
Even a small school may have a sand bin, swings, a slide 



APPARATUS 71 

for the little children, horizontal bar, volley-ball and tether- 
ball outfits, croquet set, basket-ball court, baseball diamonds, 
running track, and jumping pit. Other apparatus may be 
added as it may be found useful. Mr. II. S. Curtis shows 
that, with the aid of the boys, an effective equipment for a 
small school may be constructed for from eight to twenty 
dollars. "Very likely to most rural teachers," he says, "the 
program thus outlined seems ambitious, perhaps impossible 
of realization. It does certainly require that the teacher 
should have the cooperation of the children, and to some 
extent the sympathy of the neighborhood as well. But if she 
wishes the cooperation of the children, what better method 
can there be than to do something in which they are inter- 
ested ? It must be remembered too that it is quite as im- 
portant and legitimate a part of modern education for the 
children to learn to work for the common welfare as it is 
to study arithmetic or geography ; that the most of the things 
they will do will be the best kind of manual training and 
may properly be done in school time if the directors are in 
sympathy with the work." 1 

Care of equipment. A reasonable sense of responsibility 
for public property, any consideration for the teaching values 
of the equipment or a care for the development of civic 
righteousness among the children, would demand that ade- 
quate provision be made for the careful protection and pres- 
ervation of all books, apparatus, and equipment. This is 
incomparably easier to do if the children are partners in 
the matter and have spent time and energy in preparing 
and collecting the materials. The apparatus which they have 
helped to make they will be zealous in protecting from others 
as well as in using carefully themselves. Their interest in the 
protection and preservation of equipment may be made still 
more keen by their cooperation in the making of cases and - 

1 H. S. Curtis, Play and Recreation, p. 51. Ginn and Company. 



72 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

cabinets for it and in cataloguing, checking, and caring for it. 
Elected monitors are most desirable custodians. By all 
means let there be full enjoyment of the sense of joint 
ownership and joint responsibility. Dilapidated or disfigured 
articles should invite not heedless handling and destruction 
but careful repair or replacement by better specimens. 

General principles quoted. The following admirable sum- 
mary of this topic is given by Dr. F. B. Dresslar 1 : 

The general principles which seem to be emerging to guide us 
in the matter of school apparatus may be summed up and stated 
.as follows : 

i. The more thoroughly teachers are educated and trained for 
their work, the less need for specially prepared and complicated 
apparatus. 

2. The better the curriculum is adjusted to the needs and 
capabilities of children, the fewer requirements for experiments 
or methods demanding apparatus beyond the power of the 
teacher to supply. 

3. The simpler the apparatus and the more natural the experi- 
ment or method, the more satisfactory are the results for children 
of the elementary and high-school grades. 

4. Apparatus made by the pupils and teachers working to- 
gether, or by the pupils themselves, often serves to impress the 
essential purpose of an experiment to better advantage than more 
perfect laboratory appliances furnished ready-made. 

5. It is better for the pupils themselves to perform a simple 
significant experiment illustrative of some important truth than it 
is for the teacher to perform in their presence a more elaborate 
experiment directed toward the same end. 

6. School appliances designed to illustrate those forces and 
phenomena of nature which have proved themselves significant 
are more important than those which give spectacular results not 
readily seen outside the schoolroom and less obviously related to 
the immediate needs of life. 

1 Article on Apparatus in Cyclopedia of Education, Vol. I. The Mac- 
millan Company. 



APPARATUS 73 

7. Good teachers arc increasingly utilizing machine shops, 
electric-lighting plants, water systems, scientific agriculture, and 
manufacturing industries of all sorts to supplement school 
experiments and to render them more significant. 

There is a growing use of photographs, picture post cards, 
illustrated magazines, stereopticon slides and projectoscopes to 
bring distant scenes within reach of school children. The only 
danger here is that such material may absorb an undue share 
of time and the real world around them may never be made 
significant. 



PROBLEMS 

1. From the records or from careful estimates for the past 
few years determine what per cent of the cost of teachers in 
your school or city has been expended on apparatus. 

2. Estimating the increased value of the lessons in which it was 
used, what profit on the investment would you say this apparatus 
has earned during the past year ? 

3. Estimate likewise the value of any special sets or pieces of 
apparatus. Which of it is indispensable ? Which of it could be 
dispensed with without detriment ? 

4. Study the equipment listed in any supply company's cata- 
logue as follows : (a) Which pieces are inherently instructive ? 
(J?) Which are labor-savers ? (c) Which save labor that would in 
itself be educative ? (d) For which could homemade equipment 
be profitably substituted ? (e) Which would be used too little to 
justify purchase for your school ? 

5. List the physical principles involved in the construction of 
several familiar machines and instruments, such as the typewriter, 
telephone, gasoline motor, thermos bottle, etc. Would these be 
satisfactory apparatus for teaching these principles ? 

6. Study each available chart as follows : (a) Does it afford 
information not readily accessible in objects or in textbooks ? 
(b) Does it stimulate or forestall organization by the pupils ? 
(V) Could it have been made by the class profitably ? (d) Sum- 
marize all the arguments for and against its use. 



74 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

7. Plan five collections of natural specimens or products of 
your section the making of which would be particularly profitable 
for the children in school. 

8. Plan a library and museum for your school indicating 
arrangement of shelves, cupboards, wall and cabinet displays. 
If there is not a special room available, plan for utilizing avail- 
able space in one or more classrooms or office rooms. If a 
good beginning has already been made, plan improvements 
and extensions. 

9. Make an estimate of the cost of the improvements planned, 
all labor and materials possible being contributed by the school. 

10. Make similar plans and estimates for extensions and 
improvements of the playground. 

READINGS 

Burks. Health and the School, chap. xv. 

Curtis. Play and Recreation, chap. v. 

Dodge and Kirchwey. Teaching of Geography in Elementary 

Schools, chap. xvii. 
Lincoln. Everyday Pedagogy, chap. iv. 
United States Bureau of Education 

Bulletin No. 35, 191 3, "A List of Books Suited to a High 

School library." 
Bulletin No. 48, 191 4, "The Educational Museum of the St. Louis 

Public Schools." 



CHAPTER VIII 
SCHOOL HOUSEKEEPING 

Standards and traditions. The housekeeping of a family 
or of a community is not a matter of time or of means but 
of standards. To set right living standards is among the 
school's highest privileges. It is done not through study 
and instruction but through ideals and training, not by set 
courses in domestic arts but by daily effort and environment. 
It is a sad commentary on the educative influence of a 
public school that it inures its pupils to housekeeping con- 
ditions which would be tolerated in only the worst of the 
homes from which its pupils come. The most refined 
children cannot attain their mental development in the 
midst of littered and mud-tracked floors and walls disfigured 
with scrawls and spitballs without losing some of their 
dislike for coarseness and ugliness. Nor can the children 
from the crudest homes learn in the midst of scrupulously 
kept surroundings and tastefully tinted walls adorned with 
masterpieces of art without imbibing something of an 
enduring love and ambition for such environment. Most 
of the formal lessons are of no greater practical value to 
the community than is the subtle growth of ideals that 
make for worthier manhood and womanhood, and not least 
among these is the ideal of tasteful, well-kept surroundings. 
The difference between the thrifty, well-kept appearance of 
some communities and the shiftless, dilapidated appearance 
of others is not one of wealth but of ideals. It is more eco- 
nomical to keep things up than to let them run down. It is 
cheaper to be neat and orderly than to be slovenly. But 

75 



76 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

neighborhood traditions far more than any doctrine or pre- 
cept determine the way the people live. The peculiar and 
serious sanitary dangers of the place where children congre- 
gate for their daily work make another powerful argument 
for the highest standards of school housekeeping. 

Janitors. Trained or even intelligent janitors are too rare 
to warrant educators in shifting this responsibility from their 
own shoulders. Janitors must ordinarily be patiently trained, 
systematically instructed, and ceaselessly supervised by those 
in charge. It is economy to pay salaries sufficient to employ 
janitors of ability and reliability. They should be such as 
can manage the heating and ventilating apparatus with 
economy and efficiency. They should be such as can aid 
the management of the school by supervising the basements 
and playgrounds and by taking entire charge of the premises 
out of school hours. They should take an active pride in the 
sanitary conditions and attractive appearances of the school. 
But it must rest upon the teachers and principal in charge 
to see that these things are done. There must be no blam- 
ing of neglect upon the janitor. There must be no neglect 
to blame. Some of the definite requirements of janitor 
service are the following : 

Floor cleaning. Floors must be cleaned daily in all rooms 
that are in regular use. The cleaning must always be done 
after the school is dismissed for the day and with windows 
wide open. It must be done thoroughly with special atten- 
tion to the corners and half-hidden crannies about the feet 
of the desks. The advantage of desks that offer no such 
broom-proof harbors for dirt is obvious. A schoolroom 
should never be dry-swept. It is better to leave the dust 
on the floor than to scatter the more dangerous part of it 
through the air and over the furniture. Dry brooms remove 
the larger trash which, though unsightly, is ordinarily not 
insanitary ; but the dust, which there is reason to fear, 



school HOUSEKEEPING yy 

remains in the room, where hands and garments will gather 
it up and breathing will gather it in. Several means are 
used for preventing the rising of the dust. Sprinkling 
leaves the dust in some spots unmoistened while converting 
the rest into mud, most of which sticks to the floor until it 
dries and returns to dust again. Moistened paper or saw- 
dust strewn over the floor has the advantage that most of 
the dust sticks to it and is swept out with it. ( )iled sawdust 
is even better. This may be supplied very economically 
by keeping a barrel of common sawdust and occasionally 
sprinkling oil over the top, allowing it to drain through. 
The sawdust is used from the top when the surplus oil 
has thoroughly drained off. The application of the oil di- 
rectly to the floor at intervals of a few weeks is perhaps as 
effective for keeping down the dust, for dust which becomes 
saturated with oil is too heavy to rise into the air, but the 
sweeping is usually not as thorough and the excessive oil 
is often quite objectionable, particularly to long skirts. It is 
also more wasteful of oil. 

Vacuum cleaning is undoubtedly the best solution of the 
problem of getting dust out of the room. An installed 
vacuum cleaner with proper attachments for reaching every 
place in the room where dust or dirt can lodge is probably 
the most hygienic and economical method in large schools. 
Portable cleaners which suck up the dust but drive the same 
air back into the room are said to act as redistributors of 
bacteria and the finer dust particles. They should be used 
with caution. 

Dusting. The " deadly feather duster " must not be tol- 
erated in school. Dry brushes of any kind merely move the 
dust. They cannot remove it. The most effective method 
of dusting furniture is wiping with large cloths, which 
should be washed out frequently and very slightly oiled with 
kerosene. A heavy oil should never be put on furniture 



78 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

or in any place where hands and clothing must touch it. 
A very little kerosene in the water in which the cloths are 
rinsed out is perhaps sufficient. Just enough is wanted 
to make the dust cling to the cloth but not enough for the 
oil to cling to the desk. Desks should all be wiped off 
every morning before school opens. The dust of the day 
and of the sweeping settles during the night. 

Disinfecting. At least once a month, and at any time 
when there has been chance of infection by contagious 
disease, all the desks and door-knobs, woodwork, stair-rails, 
window-trim, and every place where dust might find lodg- 
ment or germs cling with the oil and perspiration of the 
hands should be thoroughly wiped off with a strong ap- 
proved disinfectant. This thorough wiping is really not a 
very tedious task if done with large cloths and in an orderly 
and systematic routine. Globes and apparatus not readily 
cleaned should be kept under cover when not in use. 
The making of neat cambric covers for apparatus is an 
appropriate exercise in domestic art for the smaller girls. 

Chalk dust. Chief among dust problems is the one of 
chalk dust. The direct injury which may be done to lungs 
and air passages by the flying particles can hardly be over- 
estimated. It is not the use of crayon that is harmful but 
the dry erasing and the tapping of erasers together to rid 
them of dust accumulations. Erasing with moist sponges 
or cloths remedies this difficulty but introduces others, in 
the 'way of keeping the sponges just moist enough to avoid 
muddy streaks on the board. Chalk troughs which hold 
both erasers and crayons out of the dust by means of wire 
coverings or raised center strips are on the market or can 
easily be provided by a janitor or manual-training class. 
The construction of the chalk trough must permit its being 
cleaned easily by the janitor. Eraser cleaners of various 
types and degrees of efficiency are also available. 



SCHOOL HOUSEKEEPING 79 

Catch-alls. Constant watchfulness on the part of the 
teacher is necessary to prevent accumulations of trash in 
cupboards, closets, drawers, and other out-of-the-way nooks 
and corners, and particularly in the desks of the pupils. In 
the basement and storerooms a janitor of inferior sort is 
very likely to have accumulations which violate all standards 
of sanitation and fire protection. 

Educative values and pupil participation. It is due the 
children that they should receive not only the suggestive 
values of good school housekeeping through the condi- 
tions of the premises and building but also the direct 
values through active participation in the process. Keep- 
ing a room thoroughly clean is a fundamentally valuable 
educative experience for any boy or girl. Too many of 
them are deprived of this privilege at home. Dusting and 
" tidying-up " a room should become genuinely pleasurable, 
far more pleasurable than enduring a room that lacks it. 
It is a poor class that would not rather keep its own 
room cleaned up than to have the task done in slipshod 
fashion by the janitor. At least the pupils should make 
it possible to demand of the janitor thoroughness in the 
sweeping and heavier tasks, by themselves doing the dust- 
ing and lighter cleaning. Assuredly parents who do not 
provide adequate funds for proper janitor service cannot 
complain at having their children do anything necessary 
to keep in a seemly and sanitary condition the place where 
characters and ideals are being formed. Under wise guid- 
ance the children themselves will come to take a pride in 
the spotless condition of the room. Competition between 
rooms may well be encouraged. It should become a matter 
of pride and credit to each pupil that his own desk and its 
immediate environment is always clean. He should gladly 
pick up the trash when " somebody else put it there " rather 
than have it there at all. Monitors with the backing of 



So SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the social spirit of the room will stimulate the less respon- 
sive. The inside as well as the outside of every desk should 
always be left in order. Each desk should be provided with 
a dust cloth if necessary in order that it be kept spotless. 
Monitors should see to it that the blackboards are left per- 
fectly clean, the teacher's desk and every piece of apparatus 
in proper order. Broom and dustpan should be convenient 
so that mud tracked in may be promptly brushed up at any 
time of the day. 

Summary of National Education Association recommen- 
dations. The following "Summary of Recommendations" 
made by the Committee on Janitor Service to the Depart- 
ment of Science Instruction of the National Education 
Association (191 3) is a useful statement of how practical 
and educative values are gotten through pupil cooperation. 
Such supervision by pupils does more than secure effective 
janitor service. It teaches facts of value which are not in 
textbooks, and more important still are the habits and ideals 
which it establishes. 

To standardize janitor service, or school housekeeping, the first 
step is to get the facts. Every building, as every room in it, has 
its own conditions to be learned and controlled. 

This can be done with least expense and greatest effectiveness 
by enlisting pupils' cooperation. Expense is negligible. Effective- 
ness is along three lines : (1) Practically constant supervision which 
good housekeepers find indispensable ; (2) permanent records of 
sanitary details in place of guesses and opinions ; (3) interest 
of future voters and home-makers in such details by practice in 
regulating them. 

Health officers. Appoint a group of health officers in each class- 
room, for periods so limited that each child has service once a year. 
Credit their work to " physiology and hygiene," or " nature study," 
" domestic science," physics, chemistry, biology. 

Temperature. Health officers shall read thermometers hourly, 
record readings in a substantial book, chart them (for example 



SCHOOL HOUSEKEEPING 81 

nurses' clinical charts) on a blackboard reserved for it, where 
pupils, principal, janitor, and visitors can see perhaps a week's 
record at a glance. When conditions permit, they shall readjust 
heat sources, ventilators, or windows to secure proper temperature, 
which, when artificial heat is used, should never exceed 68° F. 
Pupils over eight years of age can do this; sometimes younger. 

Dustiness. In high schools health officers can measure or esti- 
mate it by cultures, or by the " sugar method " recommended by 
the Committee on Standard Methods for the Examination of Air. 
The standard is two thousand particles (visible under a two-thirds 
inch objective) to a cubic inch of air. 

In elementary grades they can wipe surfaces with a clean cloth. 
If dusting was properly done, nothing is wiped off. Floor, wood- 
work, and furnishings should be as immaculate as in the best-kept 
home or hospital. This test should come at the beginning of the 
session. 

Health officers should be responsible for the moist erasing of 
chalk, but pupils should not be required to dust rooms. Officers 
should record sweeping of room or corridor while pupils or teachers 
are obliged to use the rooms. (Severe penalties for this violation 
of sanitary rights should be enforced by school boards.) 

Elementary pupils over eight years of age can do this, including 
record keeping. 

Relative humidity. Officers over eleven years of age can be 
taught to use safely the whirling wet-dry bulb thermometer recom- 
mended by the United States Weather Bureau. The danger of 
breaking is lessened by tying to the back a stick projecting a few 
inches beyond the bulbs. One instrument is enough for an ordi- 
nary building. Relative humidity should be recorded and charted 
about a half hour after the session opens. It can well be done 
later also. Where possible, officers shall readjust artificial sources 
of humidity (evaporating pans, steam radiators, etc.) or windows, 
to maintain relative humidity at 50 per cent. 

Air currents. When ventilating flues have no current indicators 
of their own, officers should measure currents with an anemom- 
eter (one is enough for the usual building), or estimate them 
with candle or joss stick. Pupils over eleven can use them, 
perhaps younger. The effectiveness of air currents is best learned 



82 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

by comparing the smell of schoolroom air with that out of 
doors- — -the standard of freshness. Air currents and freshness 
should be recorded at least once at the middle of each session. 
Officers should make such readjustments of windows or ventilators 
as indicated. 

Cleanliness. Cleanliness of washbowls, waterclosets, and of 
any other part of building or yard should be recorded once each 
session. Dirt on windows sometimes diminishes illumination one 
quarter to one third, measured by a photometer. The instrument 
is costly, and until a less expensive method is devised the opinion 
of health officers can be given. Dirty windows are important in 
rooms badly ventilated or specially exposed to smoke and dust. 
Such windows sometimes need washing once in two weeks. Pupils 
over eleven, possibly younger, can do this reporting. 

General suggestions. Health officers from older grades can be 
appointed for rooms where pupils are too young for any special 
detail. 

When a fault is found beyond pupils' function to remedy, it 
should be reported immediately to the proper authority, probably 
the principal. It is wise never to " interfere with the janitor." 
This report and the result following should be stated in " Health 
Officers' Permanent Records." 

For other than classrooms and for corridors, groups can be 
specially appointed, their duties being suitably modified. 

Some, if not all, of these exercises' in practical sanitation can be 
undertaken quietly at any time by any teacher in charge of any 
room. One or the other is already proved practicable in individual 
schools within the last ten years. The accumulated data will be 
invaluable. It is the practical first step in reducing " school 
diseases," including tuberculosis, which increases all through school 
years (except in open-air schools) and among teachers has a 
mortality rate higher than among the general public. 

These facts will help demonstrate that school housekeepers, 
like others, must be trained in sanitary methods. Janitors' salaries 
and their supervisors' often equal and sometimes exceed salaries 
of teachers, principals, and other trained workers whose responsi- 
bilities are no more serious, and who are carefully prepared and 
tested before appointment. 



SCHOOL HOUSEKEEPING 83 

PROBLEMS 

1. Make an abstract of the regulations of your state, county, or 
city regarding the cleaning of school buildings. 

2. Inspect one or more schools thoroughly and make a detailed 
report as to their cleanliness. 

3. How much of the cleaning can reasonably be required of the 
janitor service provided for each of these schools ? 

4. How much should wisely be secured through the children? 

5. Prepare a set of rules for janitors to guide them in keeping 
the school cleaned properly. Study all such sets of rules you can 
obtain and adapt the best points to your school. Include pro- 
visions for corridors, stairs, etc. 

6. Similarly sketch a set of regulations such as you would 
seek to have the children of a given grade prepare for their own 
government. 

7. Study the advertising and, if practicable, samples of floor oils 
and disinfectants for school use. 

8. From supply-house catalogues and other advertising media, 
make a comparative study of the advantages of brooms, brushes, 
self-oiling brushes, vacuum cleaners, and other appliances for 
cleaning. 

READINGS 

Allen. Civics and Health, chap. xiv. 
Dresslar. School Hygiene, chap. xxiv. 
Pruddex. Dust and its Dangers. 
Putnam. School Janitors, Mothers and Health. 
School Laws and Regulations (any available). 



CHAPTER IX 

HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 

A growing responsibility. Until the present era the 
Greeks were the world's most enlightened educators. With 
them schooling was first of all a matter of physical and 
spiritual development. In much less degree was it literary. 
Their curriculum had in it little of books and much of 
games. Their educated man became a model for sculptors. 
Their schools created no problems of hygiene or contagion. 
During the Middle Ages a contempt of the flesh, — 
associated always with the World on one hand and with 
the Devil on the other, — together with a blind dependence 
on authority and writ, narrowed the meaning of education 
to mere book study. Learning, unhappily, became associated 
with frail bodies, spectacled eyes, and aloofness to the affairs 
of men. This was bad enough for the individual scholar 
but, with the advent of democracy's universal education, 
modern schools have tended to impose the same medieval 
bookishness upon all classes, and furthermore have infinitely 
aggravated the difficulty by the sheer immensity of the edu- 
cational machine. The modern school has caused its own 
peculiar hygienic problems, and until quite recently it has 
caused them much more rapidly than it has solved them. 

Educational thinkers have always recognized the dangers 
of making school life too confined and sedentary. Locke 
and Rousseau plead eloquently for the " mens sana in cor- 
pore sano." Vittorino da Feltre in the fourteenth century, 
Salzmann in the seventeenth, and the Jesuits through several 
centuries, allowed liberally for physical exercise in their 

84 



HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 85 

systems of training. Others have permitted or expected it 
but usually as something outside of, rather than essential to, 
education proper. Formal recognition of hygienic dangers 
arising from the school work itself, and legal provision to 
combat them, seem to have begun with a French law of 
1833. Official inspection of pupils and premises with refer- 
ence to health conditions has been obligatory in all French 
schools, public and private, since 1887. Germany was con- 
siderably slower, while England and this country hardly 
woke up to the subject until the twentieth century. Already, 
however, there is more or less adequate medical inspection 
and health supervision in all but the most backward school 
systems, and the extension of such provisions is so rapid 
that statistics regarding them become out of date before they 
can be compiled and published. 

A pressing social problem. Compulsory attendance, 
whether compulsion is by law, public opinion, or family 
ideals, has upset the process of natural selection which once 
eliminated the unfit from school (along with most of the 
fit). The schools have now become the great clearing 
houses not only for intelligence, social ideals, and standards 
but also for disease germs and whatever else may be passed 
about among the children of the community. It is well. 
The " common herd " share in the political and intellectual 
prerogatives of the few and they as freely share with the 
few those curses of disease and vice which are theirs by 
virtue of their being a common herd. Thus the public 
school is bringing about the biotherhood of man both by 
making the knowledge of the few accessible to all and by 
making the curses of the many the problem which all must 
solve in self-preservation. Public education makes impera- 
tive the conquest of contagion. Scarlet fever and diphtheria 
must go the way of yellow fever. Colds and typhoid must 
come to be considered like theft and arson. Crime may 



86 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

be regarded more tolerantly as a disease, but disease less 
tolerantly as a crime. 

Sanitary dangers and ideals. The frequency and extent 
of epidemics among school children and the terrible toll 
they have taken are sufficient accusation against the school 
as a disease-distributing agency. Few conditions could be 
conceived of more favorable for the transmission of infection 
than an insanitary school. Children come from every sort 
of home environment ; they play in every sort of place ; they 
come in contact with all grades of human beings, dogs, 
cats, ash-barrels, back alleys, and worse. Their soiled hands, 
sticky faces, and sweaty clothes are ideally adapted for 
carrying germs. Contamination from any such source may 
be readily distributed at school to every portion of the com- 
munity by physical contact among the children, direct or 
through the medium of pencils, books, drinking cups, towels, 
or any other thing which they make use of in common. 
On the other hand, prevention more than keeps pace with 
the peril. "Safety first" applies to schools as well as to 
factories. The schools " of the people, by the people and 
for the people " shall at least not be guilty of those viola- 
tions of public safety for which dairies, meat markets, and 
other private enterprises are promptly put out of business. 
So effectively have the precautionary measures been applied 
in the better school systems that, instead of closing the 
schools summarily on the appearance of an epidemic disease, 
the school is regarded as the safest place for children to be. 
Under proper sanitary conditions schools should no more 
close to avoid contagion than hospitals should. 

General precautions. Precautions against contagion include 
at least the following : sanitary drinking fountains, lavatories, 
and toilets ; elimination of common towels and drinking 
cups ; insistence on clean hands, faces, and clothing ; keep- 
ing hats and cloaks on separate and individual hooks or in 



HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 87 

private lockers ; prohibition of the chewing of pencils, pens, 
and books, or of the exchange of these or of handkerchiefs 
or other persona] belongings ; keeping the place free of 
flies and of all sorts of vermin disease carriers; regular and 
thorough cleaning of the rooms ; disinfecting of desks, 
door-knobs, etc. ; abundant flushing out of the air of the 
room ; as much sunshine as practicable ; and the prompt 
exclusion or sufficient isolation of all affected pupils. 

Infectious sprays. Spitting, coughing, and sneezing are 
among the most dangerous of common practices. By this 
means there are sprayed out into the air countless globules 
of moisture to which microbes are clinging. These are 
breathed in by pupils or settle upon their desks, books, or 
persons and are soon communicated to their air passages 
thus giving rise to epidemics of colds, grippe, or worse. 
Every child should be vividly taught these dangers and 
rigidly trained never to cough, sneeze, or spit except into 
his handkerchief or other receptacle. The best receptacle 
is a piece of paper that is immediately burned. 

Drinking-cup dangers. Nature's favorite mode of trans- 
porting germs is by the mouth. Common cups and open 
buckets are now almost everywhere prohibited by law. 
Individual cups in actual use are so troublesome as to be 
almost impracticable. Keeping them separate and clean is 
an unending nuisance, while the promiscuous lending results 
in their being neither individual nor sanitary. Paper cups, 
such as are provided in public places for a penny in the 
slot, are sanitary but rather expensive. Children may quickly 
learn to fold a sheet of clean writing paper into a very 
satisfactory cup for a single drink. However, there is no 
longer excuse for any of these inadequate makeshifts in a 
school's equipment. Sanitary drinking fountains alone should 
be tolerated as facilities for drinking. Where running water 
is available they require no attention, and the best forms .come 



88 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

as near to being perfectly sanitary as could be hoped for. 
From the many forms on the market those should be selected 
which the children cannot touch or inclose with their lips. 
There are also sanitary fountains adapted for attaching 
directly to a water cooler. These are sold at a very low 
cost. It is incumbent upon the teacher to see that coolers 
are emptied and rinsed out daily and scalded weekly. Rarely 
can janitors be trusted to attend faithfully to the water 
supply without supervision. 

Clean hands. Clean hands must be made the conscious 
ideal and the fixed habit of children, and the first step to 
this end is the providing of abundant conveniences for 
keeping them clean. The same water used by several chil- 
dren or a basin which becomes grimy may well serve as a 
medium for communication of disease rather than as 
a preventive. The common towel is another evil which is 
now quite commonly prohibited by law. Its dangers need 
no discussion. Paper towels seem to be the most satisfac- 
tory solution, but some instruction and watchfulness is 
necessary to secure satisfaction and economy in their use. 
Individual towels, like the individual cups, are likely to be 
used pretty much in common and to become very much 
soiled. If used, some efficient routine plan of oversight 
is necessary. 

The rural water supply. In rural sections where a local 
water supply is depended upon, special consideration must 
be given to this agency of contamination. Serious epi- 
demics of typhoid and various bowel complaints have fre- 
quently had their origin in the country-school water supply. 
Few springs or small streams are sufficiently protected from 
the drainage of pigstys, cow lots, and human habitations to 
be fit for drinking. However clear and cold and sparkling, 
such water supply should not be trusted unless frequently 
passed upon by expert authority. Open school wells are 



HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 89 

a favorite repository for the tin cans or other trash which 
children pick up about the premises. The far-off, myste- 
rious splash in the darkness of the deep well is fascinating to a 
small boy. With the aid of well-bucket and dipper the entire 
well is almost certain to become a medium for the culture 
and exchange of mouth-carried germs. The water which 
is slopped about the curb soon trickles back into the well, 
carrying the surface impurities with it. Many such spots 
have become well-patronized hog-wallows, and even this has 
not lessened the faith of the ignorant in the healthful qual- 
ity of the cold, sparkling water which is drawn from the 
depths by the slimy, "moss-covered bucket" which their 
innocency knew. At least, the well should be closed, 
a pump introduced, and the surrounding surface so pro- 
tected by concrete that the drainage will be away from the 
well and seepage into it impossible. A driven or bored 
well is safer. 

Segregation of suspects. In addition to these general 
precautions ample provision must be made for the prompt 
detection and elimination of every case of possible con- 
tagion. The medical inspector and the school nurse are 
the best agents for this protection, but where they are not 
constantly accessible, and to supplement their offices where 
they are, the teacher should be able to recognize the com- 
moner symptoms and to take prompt and intelligent pre- 
cautionary steps. To be on the safe side, every pupil 
developing a fever, sore throat, or eruption of almost any 
kind should be segregated from the school until the cause 
is known and treated and until the proper health authority 
has assumed responsibility for the case. The accompany- 
ing table indicates briefly some of the more pronounced 
symptoms of the frequent contagious diseases of children. 
The length of time during which the affected one should be 
excluded from school is also given and the time that children 



90 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

who have been exposed to the disease but who do not 
contract it should be segregated for the protection of others. 
All books etc. which an affected pupil has used and with 
which he has been in contact should be thoroughly dis- 
infected or burned. His desk and other objects which 
may have been infected by or in the same manner as him- 
self should be well washed with a suitable disinfectant as 
soon as he is suspected and segregated. 

COMMUNICABLE DISEASES AMONG 
SCHOOL CHILDREN 

Diphtheria. Symptoms variable and difficult to determine. Sore 
throat with white patches, swelling of lymph nodes in neck about 
angle of jaw, great debility and lassitude. Exclude patient until 
fully recovered and disinfected and cultures taken from nose and 
throat on two successive days contain no diphtheria bacilli. Ex- 
clude children exposed to disease until same culture tests have 
been made as are required of patient. When diphtheria appears, 
segregate promptly every child with sore throat until culture tests 
have been made. Get instructions from the nearest health author- 
ity as to taking cultures and getting them examined. Diphtheria 
is very contagious and dangerous. It is frequently distributed by 
means of infected milk supply. 

Measles. Begins like cold in the head, with feverishness, run- 
ning nose, inflamed and Watery eyes, and sneezing ; small crescent- 
shaped groups of mulberry-tinted spots appear about the third 
day ; rash first seen on forehead and face. Rash almost dis- 
appears in cold air and returns in warmth. Exclude patient at 
least ten days and until recovery and disinfection. Exclude ex- 
posed pupils fifteen days from exposure to disease. Danger of 
infection greatest before rash appears. 

German measles. Less serious but hard to distinguish from 
scarlet fever. Illness slight and sudden. Probably some feverish- 
ness, sore throat and inflamed eyes but no cold in head. Lymph 
nodes back of ears enlarged. Exclude patient as in measles and 
those exposed from eleventh to twenty-second day after exposure. 



HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 91 

Scarlet fever. Onset is usually sudden, with headache, languor, 
feverishness, sore throat, and often vomiting. Usually within 
twenty-four hours the rash appears, finely spotted, evenly diffused, 
and bright red. Rash is first seen on the neck and upper part of 
chest, and lasts three to ten days, when it fades and the skin peels 
in scales, flakes, or even large pieces. The tongue becomes whitish 
with bright red spots. Eyes not watery or congested. Exclude at 
least thirty days and until all discharges have ceased and person 
is disinfected. Exclude others for seven days from last exposure 
to disease. Very contagious. Dangerous both during attack and 
from after effects. Peeling may last six or eight weeks. Great 
variation in type of disease. Many slight cases not recognized 
but equally infectious with serious ones. Milk specially apt to 
convey infection. 

Smallpox. Sudden onset of feverishness, backache, and sick- 
ness. About third day a red rash of shotlike pimples, felt below 
the skin and seen first about the face and wrists ; spots develop in 
three days and then form little blisters, and after three days more 
become yellowish and filled with matter. Scabs then form, which 
fall off about the fourteenth day. Peculiarly infectious, especially 
by any portion of skin or scab. Effectually prevented by vaccina- 
tion. Exclude until complete recovery and disinfection. Exposed 
pupils excluded for twentytwo days after exposure or seven days 
after successful vaccination. 

Whooping cough. Begins like cold in head with bronchitis and 
sore throat and a cough which is worse at night. " Whooping " 
develops in about two weeks. Vomiting after paroxysm of cough- 
ing is a probable symptom. Exclude patient one week after last 
characteristic cough and until disinfection. Exclude exposed pupils 
fourteen days if no cough develops. 

Mumps. Sickness, fever, and pain about angle of jaw. Glands 
become swollen and tender, jaws stiff, and saliva sticky. Exclude 
for two weeks and until after disinfection. Exclude exposed pupils 
from fifteenth to twenty-second day after last exposure. 

Chickenpox. Mild, possibly slight fever, rash appears on second 
day as small pimples, which in about a day become filled with clear 
fluid. Fluid becomes matter, spot dries, and crust falls off. Suc- 
cessive crops may appear until tenth day. Exclude until all scales 



92 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

are shed, spots have disappeared and person is disinfected ; at least 
twelve days. Examine head for spots. Exclude exposed children 
twenty-two days after exposure. 

Sore throat (acute, septic form). Begins with sore throat and 
weakness. Throat diffusely reddened and may show patches like 
diphtheria. Exclude until recovery. 

Disinfection of the person means that after complete recovery 
the child shall be thoroughly washed with soap and water, teeth 
brushed, mouth rinsed, throat gargled, and nose sprayed and 
douched with an antiseptic solution and that all clothing shall be 
thoroughly cleansed. 

All these diseases are distributed principally by means 
of month spray emitted in coughing or by discharges from 
nose, mouth, or ears. 

The information given here is intended only as first aid 
to teachers who are compelled to rely on their own resources 
in emergencies, and should never be made a substitute for 
competent medical advice or the decision of health authori- 
ties where these are accessible. The statement of symptoms 
given is by no means sufficient to determine positively the 
nature of the diseases, but should such symptoms be found, 
the teacher should promptly segregate the case until expert 
authority has passed upon it. 

A civic lesson. It has already been pointed out that in 
dealing with such situations one has a supreme opportunity 
for teaching not only the immediate lessons of hygiene 
and sanitation — and these should be made as effective as 
possible by means of the object lessons so unfortunately 
supplied — but also the broader lessons of civic virtue. 
An invaluable problem for discussion is that of the right 
of any individual to attend school or places of business 
and amusement at the risk of spreading disease to others. 
Untold sufferings arise from the lack of popular sympathy 
with quarantines, fumigations, and sanitary regulations. 



HEALTH RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SCHOOL 93 

The worst obstructions to efficiency in these measures are 
the people whom they are intended to protect. It is for the 
teachers of the land to make the next generation willing 
and intelligent cooperators in all public sanitary measures. 

The hope of human progress. Every child should be 
made keenly conscious that diseases of the human body can 
ordinarily be contracted only by receiving into the body 
germs which have come, directly or indirectly, from a 
diseased human body. Skin diseases are possible only from 
contact with a diseased skin or with something that has 
been in such contact. Intestinal disorders occur only from 
germs which have come out of a diseased body and have 
entered another body, usually through the mouth. Lung 
and throat troubles must enter through the mouth or nose. 
However many the media of transmission, a few precautions 
will provide against them all. If the skin is kept clean, if 
all wounds are kept disinfected and insect bites avoided, 
if nothing contaminated enters the mouth and no sprayed 
germs are drawn in with the breath, there could be no con- 
tagion and there would be relatively very little sickness. 
Even these simple principles may be summed up in one, — 
cleanliness of the person and of that which is taken into it. 
As nearly all infections are taken into the system through 
the mouth or through wounds, these gateways to the inner 
system must be unceasingly guarded with antiseptic sentinels. 
To jnst the degree in which universal instruction and train- 
ing through the public schools makes these priiiciples of 
cleanliness fundamental in the life of all classes of people 
zvill human suffering be alleviated and human life prolonged. 

If only they are used with sufficient regularity and in 
sufficient abundance, Nature's disinfectants — supplied every- 
where without cost and without stint — are the safest, surest, 
pleasantest, and most completely satisfactory. Fresh air, 
sunshine, pure water, exercise, rest ; vigorous, wholesome 



94 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

living in school and out ; regular habits, personal cleanliness, 
hard work, peace of mind, and good cheer — these are the 
things that make school life safe and sanitary, hygienic and 
happy. Unnatural conditions necessitate chemical disinfec- 
tants, and while good school management must take cog- 
nizance of such artificial protection, its ideal is always to 
keep as far from the need of them as possible. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Read and summarize the laws or regulations regarding the 
control of infectious diseases which apply to the schools of your 
community. 

2. Make actual inspection and report on the sanitary condi- 
tions of as many schools as practicable. Indicate which of the 
conditions might contribute to spread of disease. Make recom- 
mendations and estimate cost of remedying these conditions. 

3. Prepare an outline of instructions to be given and special 
rules to be enforced at school (i) during an epidemic of grippe or 
colds ; (2) in case diphtheria should be discovered among the 
pupils. 

4. Prepare a detailed statement as to the means of disinfecting 
(1) desks, (2) books, and (3) room. 

5 . From the best data available make an estimate of the money 
loss on account of the children alone, due to the last epidemic in 
your community. Include cost of time and of schooling wasted ; of 
medical treatment. Make some statement of the inconvenience, 
anxiety, and suffering caused. Consider also the incalculable loss 
from deaths. Make a comparative statement of the probable cost 
and inconvenience of taking steps to prevent such an epidemic. 

READINGS 

See next chapter. 



CHAPTER X 

HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 

The four responsibilities. Tn pointing out in earlier 
chapters that defective lighting, ventilation, heating, seating, 
and other school conditions may actually produce eye defects, 
spinal curvature, and nervous disorders and increase general 
susceptibility to colds, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other 
physical ills, we have sought to establish the first demand 
of school hygiene ; namely, that no defect or disease shall 
be caused by the school or by its requirements. 

A second demand has been the burden of the preceding 
chapter — that no disease shall be communicated through the 
agency of the school. 

The public school's responsibility, however, does not end 
with these negative requirements. It is also demanded that, 
as far as possible, the presence of disease or defect shall be 
detected by the agency of the school and parents be advised 
and guided in securing remedial treatment. This problem 
is the purpose of the present chapter, but we may add here 
that there is a fourth demand ; namely, the school shall provide 
as a part of its curriculum such exercises and training as 
shall relieve, so far as possible, existing physical defects 
among the pupils and develop their physical capacities to the 
fullest. The discussion of this fourth demand is not within 
the scope of this work. 

The waste from physical defects. Even though the 
physical defect be not contagious, it reduces the learning 
power and permanent efficiency of its possessor. The school 
avoids wasting its own energies and the state protects itself 

95 



96 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

against the burden of helpless citizens by subjecting all 
school children to thorough medical examination and super- 
vision. The principle is but a logical extension of the whole 
principle of public and compulsory education. Both com- 
pulsory education and compulsory medical inspection are 
primarily measures of economy and social self -protection. 
Adenoids, decayed teeth, troublesome eyes, or other easily 
remediable defects quite commonly mean one or more years 
of retardation for the sufferer. Each year of retardation 
means the loss to the state of the cost of educating the 
child for the year. It further means the waste due to 
the less efficient work of the teacher and of the entire class 
which are hampered by the drag of the deficient pupil. 
Worst of all, it probably means the waste of a large propor- 
tion of the child's efficiency in subsequent years during and 
after school life. Twenty-five to fifty per cent of the learn- 
ing efficiency of a child may be lost because of some slight 
defect of which he and his parents are ignorant but which 
may easily be detected and remedied with the aid of 
school inspections. 

The extent of these nonepidemic defects among the 
twenty million school children of the United States is indi- 
cated by the following summary based upon the results of 
many investigations : x 

Not far from 2,000,000 (10 per cent) are suffering from a grave 
form of malnutrition ; 10,000,000 (50 per cent) have enough de- 
fective teeth to interfere seriously with health; at least 2,000,000 
(10 per cent) suffer from obstructed breathing due to enlarged ton- 
sils ; probably 2,000,000 (10 per cent) have enlarged cervical glands 
which need attention, many of these being tuberculous ; at least 
10,000,000 (50 per cent) are, or have been, infected with tuber- 
culosis, of whom about 2,000,000 (10 per cent) will later succumb 
to the disease ; 4,000,000 (20 per cent) have defective vision; over 

1 Terman, Hygiene of the School Child, p. 8. Houghton Mifflin Company. 



HEALTH [NSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 97 

1,000,000 (5 percent) have defective hearing; about 1,000,000 
(tj percent) have spinal curvature or some other deformity likely 
to interfere with health; not far from 500,000 (2^ per cent) 
have organic heart disease; and at least 1,000,000 (5 per cent) 
are predisposed to some form of serious nervous disorder. 

Medical inspectors. Medical inspection is now quite gen- 
eral but is still occasionally provided by the health authori- 
ties, charitable agencies, or individual initiative. It should 
be and most commonly is regarded as a responsibility of 
the school board and one hardly less important than instruc- 
tion and equipment. Large cities should undoubtedly have 
specialists in this particular work employed on full time. 
Smaller cities should have competent physicians or nurses 
to devote specified time to this duty. A few rural counties 
have led the way in the employment of experienced experts 
to have entire charge of the inspection and supervision of 
the sanitary condition of the schools and physical condition 
of the pupils. Where even a part of the time of an expert 
cannot be regularly employed, there can usually be found a 
public-spirited physician or one who desires to extend his 
practice who will make at least one routine inspection annu- 
ally without any charge whatever. Such enlightened self- 
sacrifice usually profits a physician far more than it costs him. 

Dental inspection. Dental inspection is commonly and 
properly made quite distinct from the general medical in- 
spection. In smaller communities local dentists are fre- 
quently willing to make necessary dental inspections and 
reports free of all charge. It is dignified and professional, 
but none the less effective, advertising. One hundred and 
nine cities of the United States had regular dental clinics, 
free at least to those unable to pay, in the year 19 14. Most 
conspicuous among these is the two million dollar Forsyth 
Dental Infirmary for Children presented to the city of 
Boston. A rapidly growing appreciation of the serious 



98 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

effects of bad teeth upon general health and efficiency 
should prompt every community to provide some adequate 
treatment for those too poor to provide for themselves. 
Such care may well be classed in the category of educa- 
tional necessities which are the right of every child along 
with free instruction and free books. 

Dr. William H. Potter thus summarizes the school's 
responsibility with reference to children's teeth : 1 

i . In all public schools there should be careful instruction given 
as to the nature of the teeth ; their uses ; the diseases which attack 
them ; and the methods for preventing or diminishing these dis- 
eases. Children and their parents should be taught that the clean- 
ing of the teeth and their thorough use upon hard foods will much 
reduce and perhaps prevent decay. School teachers must assume 
an oversight in regard to their pupils' teeth. 

2. Examinations of the teeth on all school children should be 
made at least twice a year. 

3. Establish in school buildings school dental clinics in charge 
of dentists paid by the municipality. Add the services of a dental 
nurse, if the law makes them possible. These school clinics are to 
serve only those unable to consult a private dentist. A small fee 
should be charged in every case if possible. 

4. Begin work upon school children before serious decay has 
occurred in their permanent teeth, and continue the supervision 
and necessary repair work through the twelfth year. 

Examination by specialists. Specialists in the eye, ear, 
nose, and throat likewise serve themselves as well as the com- 
munity when they accept an invitation to make free inspec- 
tion at least of such children as may be specially referred to 
them by the medical inspector or the teacher. In one town, 
where adenoids were particularly prevalent, such an inspec- 
tion was made by a specialist from a neighboring city with 
the result that a series of "adenoid parties" were held. The 

1 United States Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 18, 1913. 



HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 99 

specialist made a low rate for the operation and funds were 
raised by subscription for the few who could not afford to pay. 
Reliable opticians who advertise free examination can readily 
be persuaded to make their examinations at the school. 

School nurses. The utilizing of volunteer or part-time 
inspectors, however, has certain disadvantages and is prob- 
ably not as effective as the regular employment of a full- 
time nurse. Medical Director Foster of Oakland, California, 
has this to say in the way of comparison : J 

When the mooted question of doctors on part time or nurses on' 
full time came up, I favored the latter to do the routine work, but 
under strict medical supervision, and six years' experience with 
nurse help has strongly convinced me that we made no mistake. 
It is a matter of true economy, for the nurse's full time can be 
had for the same pay as the doctor's two or three hours. They 
will do, hour for hour, as much work and do the required work 
equally well. They are patient, painstaking, and persistent. They 
do not stir up antagonisms and jealousies as does the average 
doctor, for he will be accused, even if unjustly, of working for his 
own betterment. . . . The nurse will meet resistance and abuse 
with more tact and will overcome objections where the ordinary 
doctor will fail. The objection that the nurse cannot properly 
diagnose has no force. She can tell a decayed tooth or enlarged 
tonsil, defective vision or granulated lids. She may not be able to 
tell the exact defect of vision ; neither can many doctors. What 
should be done with certain diseased conditions, she may not 
know ; any half dozen doctors, taken at random, might have that 
number of different opinions. What is required is to find the 
defect, if it exists, and refer it to the family doctor or specialist 
for a definite diagnosis and treatment, then follow up the case 
and see that the work is done. 

The school nurse is probably the best solution of the 
problem of physical inspection and supervision. She is on 

1 Proceedings of Eighth Congress of American School Hygiene Association, 
p. 26. 



IOO SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

duty constantly or makes daily visits according to the size 
of the school. She is provided with clinic thermometer, 
simple remedies, and first-aid equipment and should have 
a cot ready in a quiet room for the occasional emergency. 
To her the teachers refer every case of indisposition. She 
should be competent to determine between the real and the 
imagined or pretended. She should attend to the injuries 
and slight ailments incident to a large group of children. 
More serious cases she refers promptly to parents or physi- 
cians. She should be particularly trained to recognize the 
first symptoms of contagious diseases. She should make sys- 
tematic medical inspections including eye and ear tests. She 
should visit the classrooms and have an especial care for 
hygienic and sanitary conditions. She should have an over- 
sight of the defective, feeble, or nervous children at their 
work and see that their special needs are provided for. She 
should have general inspectorial and supervisory authority in 
all matters of hygiene and sanitation regarding the school 
and maintain the standards of school housekeeping. She 
should visit the homes and advise with parents regarding 
any questions of the children's physical welfare — medical 
treatment, food, exercise, sleep, light for study, or cleanliness. 
She should hold mothers' meetings and should follow up all 
recommendations made in the physical inspections. 

Teacher as medical inspector. But where neither nurse 
nor other medical inspector is provided, and this still in- 
cludes a large proportion of the children of America, it is 
incumbent upon the teacher to perform as many of their 
functions as possible. Any teacher may easily familiarize 
himself with the symptoms of such common affections as 
adenoids, enlarged tonsils, anaemia, hookworm, nervous dis- 
orders, and troubles of the eye, ear, or throat. It does not re- 
quire experience or expert knowledge to select those children 
who should be recommended for expert examination. 



HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION ioi 

Eye tests. One can quickly learn to use the Snellen 
Test Cards for defective vision. These are usually supplied 
to schools without cost by the local or state health authori- 
ties, or they may be purchased for a few cents. Simple 
directions come with the cards. It may be well to say that 
care must be taken to avoid having the children become 
familiar with the cards beforehand or while others are being 
tested, in which case memory instead of vision might be 
tested. It is necessary also to avoid pressure on the ball of 
one eye by holding the hand against it while the other is 
being tested ; also to keep the cards clean and bright and 
to have the light shine squarely upon the card and not into 
the eyes during the test. Carelessness in these simple 
details sometimes begets confusing results and destroys 
confidence in the tests. 

Hearing tests. The simpler hearing tests are so affected 
by varying conditions that they are not satisfactory for 
school use. The "whisper test" may be useful after con- 
siderable practice. The audiometer is too elaborate an 
instrument to be used except for very thoroughgoing 
examinations. The best practical test is a teacher suffi- 
ciently sympathetic to recognize the difference between 
deafness and dullness. If, while the children are attentive 
to their studies, something is said to a child in a low tone 
which those sitting near him hear and he does not, there 
is some indication that his hearing is defective. Repeated 
tests of this kind would be fairly conclusive, allowance being 
made for the possibility that greater concentration on the 
study accounts for the results. Deafness of one ear is 
readily tested by closing the other. 

Health records. Whoever makes the medical inspection, 
a complete card-index record should be kept of the physical 
history of every child. Compact forms for these records have 
been prepared by various health authorities, are published 



102 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

in the several works on medical inspection of schools, and 
have to some extent been standardized and put on the 
market by dealers. The forms provide for a full inspection 
record, attendance summary, vital statistics, and health record 
for the entire school life of the child. 

Reports. A report of the findings should be sent to the 
parents at any time that it is believed further medical exam- 
ination or treatment may be necessary. Caution is necessary, 
however, to avoid hasty and unreliable reports. Parents 
should not be unduly alarmed or antagonized. A teacher 
inexperienced in diagnosis and looking for symptoms will 
probably find enough of them to arouse a panic if parents 
take the reports seriously. Even expert inspections have 
frequently proved hopelessly unreliable and contradictory 
when followed up. Inspections, certainly those by teachers, 
may best be confined to the more evident defects or those 
which affect school progress directly and should be several 
times repeated lest parents be disturbed by unfounded 
guesses and the inspecting be brought into contempt. A 
printed form is a rather unsympathetic means of telling a 
parent that his child is suffering from a defect or disease. 
Any case of the kind is worthy of a sympathetic, interested 
personal note from the teacher or nurse. Even then igno- 
rant parents and those unaccustomed to such oversight of 
their children are likely to be alarmed or offended. To 
accomplish any actual results in the physical improvement 
of the children, it is necessary to have a sympathetic touch 
with the parents and to follow up the recommendations with 
inquiries and probably personal visits and consultations. 

Special consideration of defectives. Special consideration 
should always be extended to the child afflicted with any 
defect, yet the truly considerate teacher will avoid calling 
attention to it or making the unfortunate one more con- 
scious of his trouble than necessary. The sufferer from 



HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 103 

weak vision will be seated in the best light. The one hard 
of hearing will be seated near the teacher, and it is an act 
of kindness to him not to speak very loud when addressing 
him but to look directly at him and to articulate distinctly. 
Any partially deaf person will bear witness that being 
shouted at is painfully embarrassing and is little or no aid to 
hearing. The nervous child should by all means be allowed 
frequent opportunity for change of position and of occupa- 
tion. The frail ones should be given lighter tasks, shorter 
hours, and occasional complete rest. Cushions, foot-rests, 
and other means of relieving physical strain should not be 
denied to any child who does not abuse the privilege of 
using them. They may well be as large a factor in re- 
lieving fatigue and increasing efficiency for a frail child 
subjected to the harsh conditions of school as for his 
parents in the home or in the office. 

Instruction the higher purpose. However effective the 
inspection and reporting, however close the touch with 
parents, and however thorough the follow-up, the large 
opportunity for the teacher is in making use of these occa- 
sions for effective instruction in physiology and hygiene. 
The golden time for instruction in oral hygiene is when 
a dental inspection has brought home to every child the 
need for constant care of the teeth. Instruction in the care 
of the eyes can never be so effective as when some of the 
class have just been referred to an oculist for treatment. 
Private conferences and advice to individuals may well 
supplement such of the opportune instruction as would be 
permissible with the whole class. The occasion may be 
suitable for certain instruction in sexual problems to the 
boys and girls separately. 

The following, taken from the source quoted above in 
regard to school nurses, is an effective statement of this 
important matter : 



104 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The personality of the workers is of utmost importance. It 
may be needless to say that they must be deeply interested in 
their work and imbued with a true missionary spirit. They must 
love children and be diplomatic, patient, tactful, and persistent. 
They cannot attain the best success if their aim is merely to build 
up statistics of examinations made or operations performed. The 
removal of defects is one object and the one visible to the general 
public, but it is subordinate to the educational. I do not underrate 
repair work, but it is a means to the end. Every successful opera- 
tion is an object lesson to all who know the child, but could we 
remove all defects by the turning of the hand the next generation 
would be as bad. The real problem is prevention. The curing of 
defects without showing the way of prevention is like bailing a 
leaky boat, a never-ending task. 

Competition in health training. The following from the 
Peninsula School Fair Catalogue (Williamsburg, Virginia) 
indicates one means of keeping health instruction vividly 
before the children and fixing instruction into habit. This 
also secures much valuable data which could hardly be 
secured or tabulated otherwise. 

School contest in composition. Three prizes of five dollars each 
will be awarded, one to the school of each class exhibiting the 
best series of papers on " Malaria " bound together as a connected 
book on the subject. 

This should be the work of as many pupils of the school as 
practicable working in groups or individually. Assistance should 
be drawn from every source possible except in the actual com- 
posing and preparing of the papers and book, which must be 
done by the pupils themselves. 

The following topics are suggested for the several papers of 
the book : History of Malaria ; Its Cost in Time, Money, Energy, 
and Life ; Nature and Treatment of the Disease ; Cause of 
Malaria ; Life History of the Malaria Mosquito ; Prevention and 
Final Eradication; Community Survey of Malaria Cases, of Breed- 
ing Places for Mosquitoes, and of efforts, especially of the school 
itself, to prevent malaria. 



HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 105 

Health and attendance contest. A prize of ten dollars will be 
awarded to die ungraded school or to the room in a graded school 
making the best record and report of health and attendance for 
one hundred and twenty school days, from about October 1 to 
about April 2, on the following plan: 

The pupils of any room entering this contest shall each month or 
oftcner elect one or more of their number to keep faithfully the re- 
quired record every day. The record should be made in the morning 
and corrected for the day in the afternoon. Absences for unknown 
cause must be inquired into and recorded accurately as soon as 
possible. No guess or hearsay is permissible in this record. 

When the actual count for the 120 successive school days is 
ready, the report is to be carefully made out as follows : 

1. Show the totals recorded under each head given below for 
the whole time. 

2. Multiply each total by the penalty number shown in paren- 
thesis after that head. 

3. Eind the sum of all these products. 

4. Divide this sum by the number of pupils enrolled. 

5. This quotient is the "health-attendance index," and the 
room making the lowest index number on an approved report 
will be awarded the prize in this contest. 

Items to be Recorded 

1. Number of pupils sitting in wet shoes (5) 

2. Number not having or not using handkerchief when needed . (3) 

3. Number failing to brush teeth before coming to school ... (3) 

4. Number having toothache (3) 

5. Number having headache (4) 

6. Number having cough or cold in the head (4) 

7. Number regularly breathing through mouth (usually means 

adenoids) (2) 

8. Number having sore throat (4) 

9. Number with sores or eruptions on face or hands. (Do not 

count cuts or bruises unless they are infected and become 

running sores) (4) 

10. Number present and ill otherwise than as above (3) 

1 1 . Number absent because ill with diphtheria ....... (5) 



106 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

1 2. Number absent because ill with scarlet fever ' • (5) 

13. Number absent because ill with whooping cough (5) 

14. Number absent because ill with mumps (r\ 

15. Number absent because ill with any other contagious disease . (4) 

16. Number absent because ill with typhoid fever (5) 

1 7. Number absent because ill with malarial fever (4) 

18. Number absent because ill with any other disease or illness . (4) 

19. Number absent because quarantined to protect school . . . (1) 

20. Number absent because of fear of contagion at school ... (5) 

21. Number absent because needed to help at home (1) 

22. Number absent because of any other important reason ... (2) 

23. Number absent because of lack of interest, misconduct, or 

trivial reason not approved by teacher (5) 

The teacher must certify that the record has been faithfully and 
accurately kept by the pupils. The superintendent will check up 

these reports as far as practicable and throw out any which are 
found to be unreliable. 



The health ideal. At all times let us bear in mind that 
the school's responsibility and interest is for health, not dis- 
ease ; that we have health inspections, not disease inspec- 
tions ; that instruction should be of health and cleanliness, 
not of sickness and dirt. People who exercise, energize, 
and Fletcherize ; who love fresh air, sunshine, and cleanli- 
ness ; who are cheerful, careful, and busy, — such people 
are healthy, happy, and hearty. These are the thoughts to 
keep before the pupils. Dwelling on the unwholesome tends 
to make children morbid. Rather keep them thinking of the 
joys of being sound, the glorious luxury of keeping clean, 
the fun of being vigorous and energetic, and you contribute 
most effectively to making them so. There is every reason 
why school life should be the most wholesome life for teacher 
and pupil, why school should be the safest and happiest place 
for all to be, why eyes and lungs and nerves and backs and 
digestions and tempers should be better there than anywhere 
else. Let us keep our minds on this ideal and make it true. 



HEALTH INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION 107 

PROBLEMS 

1. Counting the average cost of a year's schooling at $30 
per child and the loss of efficiency due to any one of the defects 
mentioned in the estimate quoted from Terman at ten per cent, 
how much of the money spent for schools in the United States 
is wasted because of these defects? 

2. Supposing health supervision would save fifty per cent of 
the loss in school work due to these causes, how much would the 
schools be justified in expending for the supervision on the ground 
of economy alone ? 

3. If the medical inspection and supervision of your schools is 
not already adequate, make plans and estimate costs of making 
it so. 

4. Compare several forms of medical inspection record cards 
and prepare a form which you think includes the best features of 
them all. 

5. After preparing yourself carefully for the task, it would be 
well to make a few practice examinations of the eyes, ears, and 
general physical conditions among your pupils or fellow students. 
If possible, compare your results with the official medical inspec- 
tion records for the same persons. 

6. If a nurse is not already provided, make practicable plans 
for the employment and for the duties of a school nurse for your 
school. 

7. With the aid of necessary works on physiology and medical 
inspection, prepare a list of the most common physical defects 
among school children and the symptoms of each. 

READINGS 

Allen. Civics and Health. 

Ayres. Health Work in the Public Schools. 

Burks. Health and the School. 

Burgersteix. School Hygiene, Parts II and III. 

Cornell. Health and Medical Inspection of School Children. 

Cubberly. Public School Administration, chap. xx. 

Dresslar. School Hygiene, chaps, xx-xxiii. 



108 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Eggleston and Bruere. The Work of the Rural School, chap. iii. 

Gulick and Ayres. The Medical Inspection of Schools. 

Hoag. The Health Index of Children. 

Hoag and Term an. Health Work in the Schools. 

Kirkpatrick. Fundamentals of Child Study, chap. xvii. 

Rapeer. Educational Hygiene. 

Rowe. Physical Nature of the Child, chap. xiii. 

Shaw. School Hygiene, chaps, xi-xii. 

Tanner. The Child, chap. iii. 

Terman. The Hygiene of the School Child. 

Warner. The Study of Children, chap. xii. 

Bulletins, United States Bureau of Education 

Bulletin No. 16, 191 3, "Bibliography of Medical Inspection and 

Health Supervision." 
Bulletin No. 18, 191 3, "The Fifteenth International Congress on 

Hygiene and Demography " (Dresslar). 
Bulletin No. 44, 191 3, "Organized Health Work in Schools" 

(Hoag). 
Bulletin No. 48, 191 3, "School Hygiene" (Ryan). 
Bulletin No. 52, 191 3, " Sanitary Schoolhouses. Legal Requirements 

in Indiana and Ohio." 
Bulletin No. 10, 191 4, "Physical Growth and School Progress" 

(Baldwin). 
Bulletin No. 17, 191 4, " Sanitary Survey of the Schools of Orange 

County, Va." (Flannagan). 
Bulletin No. 20, 1914, "The Rural School and Hookworm Dis- 
ease " (Ferrell). 
Bulletin No. 40, 19 14, "Care of the Health of Boys in Girard 

College." 
Bulletin No. 4, 191 5, "The Health of School Children" (Heck). 
Bulletin No. 21, 1915, " Schoolhouse Sanitation " (Cook). 
Bulletin No. so, 191 5, " Health of School, Children — II " (Heck). 
Public-Health Bulletin, Government Printing Office 
Bulletin A T o. 77, " Rural School Sanitation." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE COURSE OF STUDY 

Early courses. As early as 1528 the Electorate of Saxony 
had adopted a graded plan of studies prepared by Melanch- 
thon, Luther's learned associate, for a uniform state system 
of schools. It provided for three grades of uncertain length 
as to time but of extensive content. For example, the first 
grade or class was taught reading and writing (of Latin) from 
a primer prepared by Melanchthon himself, the Creed, the 
Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, and several prescribed 
classical selections. From this plan the national school 
system idea of modern times has grown. 

In 1 599 the Jesuits adopted their famous Ratio Studiorum, 
the finished product of sixty years of experience and critical 
study of their plans of education. With a single revision in 
1832, it has been followed continuously in their schools. In 
it the studies and daily routine of life of pupils and teachers 
are detailed at length. 

State and city tendencies. Almost every theorist and 
organizer of schools has outlined in some form his concep- 
tion of the selection of human wisdom that should be taught 
to the rising generation. With the development of state 
and national systems of schools these selected courses have 
taken on an official character and have tended to become 
formal and prescriptive. The democratic origin of the 
American state systems has prevented a high degree of 
centralization, and we find the various state departments 
of education publishing courses of study ranging all the 
way from the barest statements of subjects to be taught 

109 



no SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

or texts required to be used, to quite valuable manuals of 
elementary methods. The lack of any highly centralized 
organization or sufficient corps of inspectors to enforce a 
detailed course of study, such as are found in France and 
Germany, has caused our state courses to be suggestive 
rather than prescriptive. The city systems, however, hav- 
ing usually a close-knit and competent organization, have 
frequently run to the extremes of prescribed detail. The 
common criticism has been that they have destroyed the 
initiative and dampened the spontaneity and enthusiasm of 
teachers. Too much prescription has been usual in the 
cities, where teachers are better paid and able to act inde- 
pendently, and little or no guidance in the country, where 
salaries are low and teachers are inexperienced. 

In form, the course of study is essentially a statement 
of the work to be covered by the school. It is usually 
divided to show the assignment for each term, occasion- 
ally for each month or week, and, in extreme cases, it 
dictates the material for each lesson. It is said that a 
French National Minister of Education once boasted that 
he could look at his watch and tell exactly what every child 
in the public schools of France was doing at the moment. 

Types of courses. The traditional mechanical course 
makes its assignments in terms of "page limits" in the 
prescribed textbooks in each subject. Such an outline has 
no value except to count time for the "lock step" into 
which it is intended to force the progress of the pupil. 
A common result is to have the pupils marking time some 
days and crowding over longer assignments than they can 
possibly digest at others. " We have to get over the ground " 
is perhaps the commonest excuse for all the sins of ineffi- 
cient teachers ; as though covering ground were in any 
sense a function of the school. Better courses are out- 
lined in topics, with or without page references to specific 



THE COURSE OF STUDY i 1 1 

texts. But these also do little more than to indicate the 
ground to be covered or, at least, are so interpreted by the 
teachers. As the ground or scope of subject matter to be 
covered is taken from the experience of the best teachers 
and schools, it may be taken for granted that it is always 
a little more than the average teacher and school can do 
well. The effect almost universally is that the course of 
study is an excuse for wasteful haste. 

Still other courses prescribe in more or less detail the 
methods to be used in teaching the several topics. These 
commonly reflect the bias or hobby of the course-maker. 
The weaker teachers direct their efforts and professional 
development toward attaining the idiosyncrasies of the out- 
line. The stronger ones are hampered in their initiative 
by the feeling that they will be judged by their approxima- 
tion to the directions given rather than by their efficiency in 
child development. 

The time-limit fallacy. Much work has been done in the 
way of investigating how much time or what proportion of 
the time in various schools is devoted to each of the studies. 
The function of such data is to indicate what has been done, 
not what ought to be. The conclusions from such studies 
would tend to show that the time factor has little or nothing 
to do with the results attained. In fact, the best educative 
results are attained, if conditions of organization permit, 
when the divisions of the pupils' work into subjects is largely 
lost in the correlations and concentrations of better teaching. 
What could be of less concern in a course of study than the 
question of how much time daily or weekly shall be given 
to the recitation of any particular subject ? Even the most 
stupid supervision of factory hands would recognize that one 
should continue at a particular task until it is done and that 
one should not keep on doing it after it is done. In the 
nature of things different pupils do not require the same 



112 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

amount of time to do the same task, much less do they need 
the same time at a given sort of exercise to secure the same 
developmental results. 

In any grade the pupils should practice writing in propor- 
tion to their need for that training. When one has attained 
a certain proficiency as a penman the work is done, and he 
no longer has any business in a writing class. When one 
has got from his arithmetic study the abilities for which it 
was intended, why should he continue at it ? To set five 
hours a week for a pupil to do what he can do in three is 
only a little worse than limiting another of less ability to five 
hours to do that which will require him eight. Obviously it 
should not be a function of the course of study to prescribe 
the time to be devoted to study tasks. 

Shifting bases of course of study. Any course of study is 
a selection from the whole inheritance of human achieve- 
ment, chosen and arranged by the authorities according to 
supposed values and adaptability for preparing the child for 
life. Few authorities, however, have a sufficient mastery 
of that human achievement to enable them to choose unerr- 
ingly, and they are by no means agreed on the basis of selec- 
tion or the grounds of adaptability. Wherefore mere tradition 
has usually been the dominant factor in determining the 
content of our courses of study. If the ideal course were 
some definite thing, we might ultimately attain it by a con- 
servative evolution, but the choice of a course rests directly 
upon four fundamental bases, each of which is itself a 
changing one : 

(i) Changing knowledge of the child's nature and capaci- 
ties ; (2) changing knowledge of the effects which different 
activities and studies have upon that nature and those capaci- 
ties ; (3) a swiftly changing body of human knowledge and 
experience available for educative purposes ; (4) changing 
ideals of what constitutes a well-educated man. 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 113 

In each of these respects the changes have been so decided 
within the past few years that no merely traditional cur- 
riculum can be justified. National and community ideals, 
prospective occupations of the majority of the pupils, the 
teaching force, the equipment and length of term, are some 
of the other factors which necessitate changes in curriculum 
from place to place, as well as from time to time. 

True functions of the course. For such reasons no course 
of study can be regarded as permanent or as ideal. What 
it should seek to do is not to set limits to the teacher's 
activity nor prescribe the exact lines of class progress, but, 
like other forms of supervision, to set up ideals, to fix mini- 
mum standards, to clarify aims, and to afford as much as 
possible of practical aid and suggestion. The functions of 
a useful course of study may be summarized thus : 

1. Clarify the teaching aims at each stage of the child's 
advancement and in every subject of study required. These 
aims should be in terms of the pupil's abilities which are 
to be established. 

2. Indicate the sort of pupil-activity which is essential in 
order that these particular abilities may be developed. 

3. Indicate the lesson materials or subject matter available 
in the prescribed texts, supplementary books, reference works, 
apparatus, and natural and social environment, through the 
use of which the necessary pupil-activity may conveniently 
and profitably be stimulated. 

4 . Suggest the methods and motivation particularly adapted 
to securing the necessary pupil-activity most economically and 
effectively, with references and other helps for the teacher's 
guidance. 

5. Suggest practical tests of the abilities sought, by which 
a teacher may know positively that the results have been 
attained and may demonstrate these results to supervisors 
or parents and to the pupils themselves. 



H4 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Its adaptability. Such a course of study should be and 
by its very organization will be readily adaptable to (i) vary- 
ing conditions of school organization ; (2) varying length 
of term, equipment, and resources ; (3) varying methods, 
preparation, and abilities of teachers ; (4) varying local inter- 
ests, ideals, and environment ; (5) varying individual capacities 
of pupils. 

The grade teacher does not make the course of study and 
is not likely to be provided with an ideal course — if indeed 
the ideal could be reduced to print. Our purpose here, then, 
is not to advise as to the making of the course but to indi- 
cate what it is that the teacher should look for in the one 
that is provided. 

Teacher's use of the course. Whatever be its form, such 
ideas as these must govern the teacher's interpretation of 
his course of study before he 'is really prepared to make 
intelligent use of it. We may repeat the points given above 
in the form of questions which the teacher should put 
before himself in preparing to use any section of the 
course assigned. 

1. What particular part does this assignment have in the 
education of the children ? What useful habit or skill is it 
intended to establish ? What ideals, attitudes, ambitions, is 
it supposed to arouse ? What knowledge is to be imparted 
for future use and in what connections or with what degrees 
of vividness should it be established in order to function 
effectively in the use expected of it ? 

2. If we recognize that all educative growth of whatever 
sort results only from activity of the pupil, what kind of pupil- 
activity is essential to get the particular pupil-development 
expected of this assignment ? 

3. What text lesson has been provided by the authors or 
prescribed by the supervisory authorities or is otherwise ac- 
cessible for' the economical and effective stimulation of pupils 



THE COURSE OK STUDY 



115 



to the particular educative activity desired ? Ordinarily this 
is the one function which the courses as provided do accom- 
plish and from this one clue the teacher must determine 
the rest. 

4. With the books and equipment as our materials and 
the required pupil-activity as our aim, what teaching device, 
methods, motivation, class exercise, or other activity of the 
teacher is best for getting the desired results ? 

5 . How may one know when the result has been attained ? 
when to continue the process ? when to discontinue ? when 
to vary ? What thing can a pupil do, or what will he do or 
want to do and try to do, when that definite educative result 
has been accomplished that he could not or would not do 
before? How may this be demonstrated to parents and pupils 
to win their appreciation and cooperation in connection with 
subsequent assignments or in promotions and retardations ? 

6. When these fundamental questions have been decided, 
just how must they be varied for the particular conditions 
and community environments in which one is teaching at 
the time? How may local situations and resources be utilized 
for motivation ? What correlations and concentrations of the 
subjects and topics are made desirable by the local conditions 
or by the peculiar interests and experiences of pupils or 
of the teacher ? What variations should be made for ex- 
ceptional individuals ? In short, every pedagogical consider- 
ation is binding upon the teacher, regardless of the course 
of study. Its intent is to fulfill and not to defeat the 
principles of good teaching. 

The measure of good teaching. It will be objected that 
such an analysis of the usual course is beyond the capacity 
of the ordinary teacher. From this objection we may reach 
three conclusions : first, that we should not have the usual 
'course ; and second, that we should not have ordinary 
teachers ; and third, that whatever the character of the 



Il6 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

course or of the teachers, their educative value to the chil- 
dren is in direct proportion to the clearness with which the 
teacher has analyzed the task assigned in just this manner. 
Whether the printed outline has merely set page limits or 
has been constructively helpful, the teacher can follow it and 
teach only by knowing the abilities or educative results 
sought for, the pupil-activity necessary to attain such results, 
the way by which the lesson material may be used to bring 
about the activity intended, and by knowing when the thing 
to be done has been done. Vaguely and indefinitely, at 
least, every teacher is conscious of just these things ; but 
if this consciousness is vague and indefinite so, likewise, are 
the results of his teaching. A more adequate analysis along 
the lines indicated will mean more adequate results. 

The cause of bad teaching. Countless teachers have 
taught arithmetic under a vague impression or perhaps a 
specific authoritative statement that the teaching of arith- 
metic to a pupil trains him to reason and prepares him for 
the business of life, when it was easily demonstrable that 
the reasoning habits resulting from that arithmetic teaching 
were positively pernicious and as preparation for business it 
was worthless. This may have been due to the fact that the 
pupil was required to "think about" combinations which 
should have been drilled into mechanical, unthinking re- 
sponse, or that he was "drilled to an automatic profi- 
ciency " on analyses and principles in which the maximum 
of attention — the very opposite of automatic response — is 
essential. This illustration could be paralleled in every sub- 
ject taught in the school and is typical of just what makes 
bad teaching bad. 

The first step in the betterment of the work of any 
teacher is to let him into the secret of what it is he is 
trying to do. The next is to disclose the same esoterics- 
to the pupil. Whatever can be done to guide or even to 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 117 

force the teacher to thinking on these things is just so 
much toward making had teaching good. The poorer the 
teacher the more imperative such thinking is. He it well 
done or poorly, it is the measure of the excellence of his 
teaching. At the very least it keeps a teacher growing 
instead of petrifying. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Compare several courses of study with reference to their 
relative helpfulness. What are the features which contribute most 
to this helpfulness ? 

2. Which features would tend to lessen the teacher's initia- 
tive ? Which would impose useless restrictions as to rate of 
progress ? Which indicate assignments in terms of development 
of pupils ? Which in terms of topics ? Which in page limits ? 

3. Classify the courses as (1) information or knowledge courses, 
(2) development courses (Cubberly). 

4. Compare the courses with reference to the content prescribed. 
What provision is made for the special needs of the city, county, or 
state for which it is prepared ? What provision for different schools 
and localities within the area in which it is used ? What oppor- 
tunity or aid is given the teacher for adapting his teaching to local 
needs and temporary circumstances ? How can it be adapted to 
the needs of pupils of differing abilities ? 

5. Compare a recent course with one twenty or more years 
old. What difference do you note in the content provided ? What 
difference in educative aim seems to be involved ? 

6. Compare, in the same manner, a course for rural schools 
with one for city schools. 

7. Interpret according to the questions under "Teacher's use 
of the course " as given in this chapter, the work assigned for 
some particular grade in a particular course. 

8. Can you discover instances in which pupils have passed 
" through " or " over " subjects or grades but do not give evi- 
dence of having gotten the sort of development that the course- 
makers intended the subject or grade to accomplish ? 



n8 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

READINGS 

Bagley. Educational Values. 

Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chap. iv. 

Chancellor. Our Schools, chap. xii. 

Charters. Methods of Teaching. 

Cubberly. Public School Administration, chap. xvii. 

Dutton and Snedden. Administration of Public Education in the 

United States, chap, xviii. 
Gordy. A Broader Elementary Education. 
Klapper. Principles of Educational Practice, chaps, vi-ix. 
McMurry. Course of Study in the Eight Grades. 
Monroe (Snedden). Principles of Secondary Education, chap. v. 
Munsterberg. Psychology and the Teacher, chap. xxv. 
Parker. Methods of Teaching in High Schools, chap. iv. 
Payne. Public Elementary School Curricula. 
Prince. Courses and Methods. 
Warner. The Study of Children, chap. xi. 

Report of the Committee of Fifteen, National Education Association. 
Report of the Committee of Ten, National Education Association. 
United States Bureau of Education Bulletin 

Bulletin jVo.j8, 191 3, " Economy of Time in Education." 



CHAPTER XII 
ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 

Origin of class instruction. John Sturm at Strassburg 
in 1538 introduced the time element into his course of 
study. Melanchthon's course had designated the things 
to be learned and the order of their being taken up, but 
it assumed that a pupil would continue upon a given assign- 
ment until it was learned and no longer. Sturm sought to 
make the product of two constants, the time and the texts, 
and two variables, the teacher and the pupil, produce a 
constant educative result. Great as have been the advan- 
tages of the grade organization of schools, to which Sturm 
was thus an important contributor, this fallacy has been 
hard to live down. 

At his time lectures were delivered in the universities to 
large audiences, but grading was not thought of except in the 
final examination of candidates for degrees. For nearly three 
centuries after the time of Sturm the actual teaching and recit- 
ing of lessons was still a purely individual matter in nearly 
all schools. Comenius (1 592-1670) advocated class instruc- 
tion and with keen insight pointed out its advantages apd in- 
dicated the method. But this was in his "Didactica Magna," 
a work which was very little known until well into the last 
century. Jean Baptiste La Salle, about 1695, wrote the 
" Conduct of" the Christian Schools as a detailed guide 
for the Brethren of the Christian Schools, a Catholic order 
devoted to primary charity education. In this work he ex- 
pounded the method of class teaching in great detail and 
may well be called the inventor of class instruction. 

119 



120 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

But the real impetus to class organization was given at 
the close of the eighteenth century when Joseph Lancaster, 
simultaneously with Dr. Bell, developed among the poor 
children of London a scheme whereby one teacher could 
teach as many as a thousand children at a time. This was 
the "monitorial system," and it consisted in organizing the 
children like an army and promulgating lessons through 
a series of monitors as a general would issue commands 
through his officers. This was widely hailed as a marvelous 
solution of the problem of universal education which the 
recent social revolutions had then made prominent in the 
dreams of statesmen. In time it was discovered, as was neatly 
said, that it was a means whereby at next to no cost at all 
a community could secure next to no education at all. But 
before the reaction took place the plan had been widely intro- 
duced and the right of all children to an education was recog- 
nized. It was gradually superseded in England by the 
Dutch plan of pupil-teachers, which made permanent appren- 
tice teachers of certain older pupils, and in this country by 
the organization of large schools on the annual grade plan. 

The trend to the mechanical. During the nineteenth 
century the tendency in American cities was toward elabo- 
rate mechanical organization. Rigid courses of study, lock- 
step methods of teaching, inelastic methods of marking and 
grading, and promotions by rule and per cents had well- 
nigh eclipsed consideration of the individual pupil. Red tape 
and routine were rampant. Smaller towns imitated big ones 
with their forms, blanks, regulations, and systems ; and only 
in the country schools of one teacher with no professional 
knowledge, and little academic, did much ' teaching of 
individuals survive. 

Ungraded schools. Seeley has summarized the advantages 
of an ungraded or "mixed" school as follows: (i) The 
child learns to be self-reliant. (2) It encourages individual 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 121 

work. (3) It furnishes an opportunity for children to learn 
from the recitations of higher classes. (4) There are not so 
many outside distractions for the country child. (5) Country 
school affords opportunity to study nature at first hand. 
(6) It trains to responsibility. So far as the work in the 
school is concerned it would seem that the third of these 
arguments largely contradicts the fourth. The three last 
mentioned are advantages of country life rather than of 
an ungraded condition of the schools. More effective 
teaching rather than the mere fact of lack of organization 
in the school should attain all the advantages mentioned. 

Values of grading. Ungraded public schools are such 
solely because of a lack of pupils, equipment, supervision, 
or teaching force to make grading practicable. Wherever 
possible these ungraded schools are being consolidated into 
central graded schools. That they should have been de- 
fended at all means simply that the organization of the 
larger schools has done some things that should have been 
left undone. There is no good thing in education which 
can be done with small means which should not be better 
done with means more adequate. If a good thing is lost 
in larger organization, the conditions and not the fact of 
the organization should be attacked. 

The advantages sought in the organization of schools 
were the following : 

1. Economy in plant and equipment and more especially 
in the teaching force, making universal education possible. 

2. Specialization in the work of the teacher, thus securing 
higher special preparation, concentration on fewer problems, 
expert ability developing through experience in a narrower 
field, and greater economy of effort and refinement of 
methods. 

3. Standardization of courses of study, textbooks, equip- 
ment, and supervision. 



122 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

4. Social and intellectual values of having pupils work in 
homogeneous groups. The stimulation of competition with 
one's peers, or the "speeding-up" of factory parlance. 

Factory organization or craftsmanship? In short, the 
advantages are precisely those obtained by organization in any 
large industry, — uniformity, economy, and efficiency through 
specialization and system. But the limitation of values in 
these factory methods when applied to schools arises from the 
fact that children are not inert materials to be manufactured 
into a uniform product. With materials never identical and 
with laborers in the educational factory working through their 
own diverse personalities and multiform spiritual processes in- 
stead of through uniform machines, the products must neces- 
sarily be individual ; the task, that of a craftsman rather than 
of a factory operative. The effect of organization upon fac- 
tory workers is to make them like their machines, — blindly 
obedient, unthinking, doing automatically and without varia- 
tion that which the systematizing head has predetermined. 
Supervision of craftsmen would seek rather to suggest, stimu- 
late, inspire ; to free the worker of needless routine, to keep 
him in the best spirit for his work, to hold up high ideals, 
to criticize constructively, to keep individuality sacred. 

A hard problem of supervision is to make craftsmanship 
organization effective when only factory-hand laborers are 
available. It is the problem of fitting ideal policies to actual 
conditions. The proportion of professionally trained teachers 
is yet small, and even the graduates of short normal courses 
are lacking in academic breadth and cultural ideals. The 
majority appear to be dependent on detailed methods and 
rule-of-thumb directions. However, since the perfunctory 
operatives cannot make good teachers, whatever the super- 
vision, factory organization should not be allowed to destroy 
the initiative of the true craftsmen nor the growth of those 
promising ones who may become such. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 123 

Eight and four or six and six. It is usual in America 
to organize the public schools above the kindergarten into 
four primary grades and four grammar grades, these eight 
years (occasionally seven or nine) constituting the elemen- 
tal}' school, and four years more known as high school or 
secondary instruction. Completion of these grades, with 
certain restrictions as to work covered, will admit to most 
American colleges. Of late there has been much advocacy 
and increasing development of the " six and six " plan, in 
which there are six years of elementary work and six of high 
school, the latter six divided into three years of "junior" 
and three years of " senior " high school. Reasons for this 
change given by United States Commissioner Claxton are 
the following : the transition to high-school methods corre- 
sponds more closely with the beginning of adolescence or 
the change from childhood to youth ; the present course 
is weakest in the seventh and eighth grades ; the begin- 
ning year of the junior high school will be the best place 
to begin departmental instruction ; the expansion of the 
work of the secondary schools in languages and mathe- 
matics will result in a considerable gain in time and will 
approximate the standards of European schools ; a further 
differentiation of the courses in the senior high schools is 
practicable ; the beginning of high school work just at the 
end of the compulsory period has confirmed an idea that 
only elementary education is needed ; it better solves the 
problem of housing the classes. 

Departmental teaching. In departmental teaching a 
teacher is assigned to one or more subjects in several 
grades, instead of being assigned to entire charge of all 
subjects in a single grade. It assumes that a teacher should 
be primarily a specialist in the content and method of the 
subjects he teaches. The other plan regards him rather as 
a specialist in children of the age he is teaching and the 



124 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

subject matter as presumed in his preparation. In the 
primary grades certainly the teacher is first of all in loco 
matris, and subject specialization would be absurd. In 
college and high-school teaching the pupil has less need 
of parental oversight, while the subjects are sufficiently 
advanced to require a specialist to teach them effectively. 
Just when the ideal point of transition is reached has been 
long in question. As indicated above, the sixth grade is 
perhaps the best place for this change. In every grade 
every pupil should have some one teacher to whom he looks 
for advice and guidance, someone who is interested in him 
personally and who is responsible for his conduct in the 
same degree that a grade teacher is for the children of his 
grade. Every high-school group should have some member 
of the teaching corps as advisory teacher who will keep 
their records, supervise their study periods, and have general 
charge of them except in the teaching of lessons assigned to 
other teachers. No child should be at school without feel- 
ing that someone is his own teacher. This feeling of mu- 
tual interest and confidence may be increased by keeping 
the same teacher in charge of a given group throughout 
their entire high-school course. Where this close personal 
relation is made permanent, however, some element of per- 
sonal choice on the part of teacher or pupil should enter 
into the selection of advisers for the groups. 

Aims of modern organization. Modern school organiza- 
tion, which seeks to get away from mere mechanism and to 
make teaching vital, develops rather than directs its teachers. 
It suggests, sets ideals, fixes aims and standards, inspires, 
and then it holds the teacher rigidly responsible for results 
in terms of real capacities developed in the children. It 
keeps the teachers studying the individual pupils, keeps 
them diagnosing individual defects and seeking causes and 
remedies ; keeps them appreciating superior abilities and 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 125 

developing them to the utmost ; it prevents them hiding in 
cowardly formality behind chance percentages in arbitrary 
examinations. It makes the teacher conscious that he cannot 
blandly wash his hands of responsibility for a pupil by merely 
marking him "failed," but that it is the teacher who fails 
if he does not make the most of whatever possibilities there 
may be in a given child. Fifty per cent on grammar and 
high standing in constructiveness, determination, and prac- 
tical usefulness is no more " failure " than one hundred per 
cent on grammar and half efficiency in the other attain- 
ments. Educational tradition has reduced but a few forms of 
mental and moral attainment to lessons, textbooks, and ex- 
amination grades. Modern organization is seeking to free 
these from the shackles of tradition and bring many others 
to due recognition. It also regards the teacher's health, 
happiness, and enthusiasm as teaching values worthy of 
monetary investment, and it counts friction and discourage- 
ment as waste no less real than financial loss. It uses 
formality and routine as labor-saving devices in the field 
of external nonessentials, but makes the heart of teach- 
ing something more spiritual than mere courses, methods, 
systems, and facts. 

Indictment of the mechanical systems. The indictment 
of the mere mechanical organization that has become tradi- 
tional may be summed up : It is based on the false assump- 
tion that all children can or should advance at a uniform 
rate, that they can be assorted into grades of homogeneous 
capacities and separated grade from grade by fixed and uni- 
form intervals. At the end of a session, work below an 
arbitrary standard of attainment, as determined by notori- 
ously defective measurements, is rejected as " failure " and 
counted as nothing, regardless of the actual development of 
the pupil. The pupil is required to repeat the work of the 
term in precisely the same manner that he went over it 



126 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

before, insuring that the defects of the previous term will 
be repeated in the second in the same manner and for the 
same reason. He becomes discouraged and paralyzed with 
his sense of failure ; or he becomes resentful, ascribing his 
defeat to the injustice of teachers or the good fortune of his 
quicker-minded fellow pupils ; he loses interest and ambition, 
which are the only forces by which he can progress ; he turns 
to idleness and mischief, thus insuring a second failure, and 
the second failure almost inevitably leads to early elimina- 
tion from the school altogether — the worst failure of which 
any school system can be guilty. To avoid this ruinous and 
humiliating disgrace of " failure," sensitive children often 
break down in health from overstudy and anxiety. Mean- 
while other children show the prescribed attainment with 
very little educative effort, development, or character build- 
ing. Having much time unemployed in study, this abler 
group discharges an enormous amount of energy into the 
usual occupations of idle hands. For lack of effort they 
soon acquire habits of inattention and mischief and of work- 
ing far below their maximum capacity — which last is the 
surest guarantee of ultimate worthjessness. Ambition to ad- 
vance beyond the slower members of the class is thwarted 
by impassable gaps between the ambitious child and the next 
grade above. There is no provision made for him to bridge 
the gap, and if he jumps it, his preparation is defective for 
much of the work in the grades above. 

Such a system fosters impersonal, routine teaching and 
promoting. The work becomes a monotonous grind ; the 
grade, a Procrustean bed. It reduces subjects and parts of 
subjects to a dead level and discourages originality and 
initiative in pupil or teacher. It suppresses genius and ambi- 
tion and makes supervision mechanical and arbitrary. The 
social values possible to a class recitation are destroyed by 
the rigidity of the grouping. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 127 

Does grading grade? How utterly the formal grading 
systems fail to do the very thing they purport to do — sort 
the children according to their mental capacity — is shown 
by numerous scientific tests made within the past decade. 
Tests of the " Reasoning Ability of Children of the 4th, 
5th, and 6th Grades," made by Dr. Bonser in 19 10, showed 
that.cjo per cent of the 4 A pupils tested were superior to the 
poorest of the 5 A pupils, and that 79 per cent of them were 
better than the poorest of the 6 A pupils. The same results 
showed 1 5 per cent of the pupils of this grade to be better 
than the middle pupil of the 5 A grade, and 5 per cent of 
them to be better than the middle pupil of the 6 A grade. 
Thorndike concludes that " the result of actual school grad- 
ing is to pick the most able for the highest grade hardly four 
times in ten." The fundamental abilities in arithmetic are 
usually regarded as the chief basis of grading, yet the Courtis 
tests in just these abilities show that there will be found in 
any fourth grade, pupils whose ability is equal to that of the 
average pupil of the seventh grade or to that of more than 
a fourth of the eighth-grade pupils ; and that there will be 
found in the eighth grade, pupils whose ability in these 
arithmetic fundamentals is below the average ability in the 
fifth grade or that of a third of the pupils in the fourth 
grade. These results are taken from thousands of classes in 
the best cities and schools of the country, and will be found 
typical almost everywhere, regardless of rigidity of grading. 

Semiannual grades. The first step toward relieving the 
overmechanizing of city school systems was the introduc- 
tion of semiannual instead of annual grades. This involves 
starting a new class of beginners twice a year, having twice 
as many grades as there are years in the course, and graduat- 
ing two groups annually. By this means the evils of retarda- 
tion and the obstacles to acceleration are, at most, but half 
as great. The half-year interval is not so great but that the 



128 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

ambitious child may make up his deficiencies and overtake 
the grade ahead by means of vacation and private study. 
The plan is in very general use. It is capable of the same 
improvements as the annual grade plan and is subject, in 
less degree, to the same evils of mechanical rigidity. 

Shorter intervals. Still shorter intervals between classes, 
six to ten weeks, have been advocated and have proved, suc- 
cessful where the size of the schools insures a sufficient 
number of teachers. Dr. W. T. Harris had such a system 
in St. Louis as early as 1870 and said of it, " Should it be 
necessary to put back a pupil to a lower class, he finds it at 
just the stage of progress which will enable him to review 
and strengthen those portions of his course that need it." 

Special classes. Dr. Harris also sought to remedy the 
waste arising from misfits in the grades by establishing special 
schools and classes. Such special classes have been largely 
introduced in recent years. They are unquestionably neces- 
sary for the physically and mentally deficient who cannot 
profit by the regular instruction of the school, but the normal 
child who has merely got a little behind his class should 
be able to find his level in the regular school. Cubberly 
names twenty-two kinds of special classes which have been 
organized to provide for those who cannot be fitted into the 
regular work. 

Cambridge "double-track" plan. In Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts, the " double-track " plan was devised by dividing 
the grammar-school course of study in two ways. It was 
divided (1) into four parts, each of which would constitute 
a year's work for the more capable pupils, and (2) into six 
parts, each being a year's work for a slow pupil. More 
recently it has been applied to the entire elementary course. 
This is divided into eight yearly grades of three terms each 
and also into six grades of three terms each, except that the 
last year in each course is divided into, two parts. This gives 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 129 

the rapid group one-third more work than the slow ones in 
each term and provides five different points at term ends at 
which the two divisions are together, if both sections start 
at the beginning of every term. Transfers may be made from 
one to the other at any of these five points. Any given pupil 
may thus complete the course in anywhere from eighteen to 
twenty-four terms without being turned back at any time. 
This plan is adaptable only for large school systems and as 
a permanent policy. It cannot well be tried out in less than 
eight years. It tends to keep the poorest pupils together 
and in many particulars may be made as mechanical as any 
other plan. 

Pueblo or individual plan. A radical plan of escape from 
the Procrustean systems of grading was that adopted by 
Superintendent Search at Pueblo, Colorado. He abolished 
class recitations on the ground that they are full of "dead 
time " and that " they reflect on the honesty of the pupil's 
preparation." Occasional class exercises were for the pur- 
pose of presenting fundamental principles or working direc- 
tions. There was no attempt to keep pupils together, but 
each task must be finished before the next was undertaken 
and every part of every lesson was recited by each individ- 
ual. No home study was permitted and very large discretion 
was given the pupil as to the direction of his time in school. 
It was claimed that this plan relieved physical strain ; trained 
independent, self-reliant workers ; that more and better work 
was done; more supplementary work could be accomplished, 
and that there was more enthusiasm and less discouragement 
than under the grade system. 

Batavia plan. Superintendent Kennedy of Batavia, 
New York, introduced a plan of supplying additional 
teachers to cooperate with the regular class teachers by 
supervising the study of pupils individually. This plan 
admirably combines the advantages of class recitation and 



130 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

of individual training. The essence of it is that it pro- 
vides for individual instruction at regular periods by com- 
petent teachers and on a definite pedagogical basis, as a 
supplement to the usual class work. As the principle may 
be adapted to almost any conditions and may be used by 
one teacher in a room by providing study periods, it has 
been very widely used with generally favorable results. The 
danger is " that the weaker pupils will be still further weak- 
ened by a ' coaching ' process that does nothing whatsoever 
for their real education." This, however, is a fault of the 
instruction and not of the plan. The technique of individual 
instruction in plans of this sort necessitates that (i) nothing 
be told the child and nothing done for him but that he be 
stimulated and directed to finding out and doing for him- 
self, that is, instruction must be by "development"; (2) ini- 
tiative in helping must be taken by the teacher rather than 
at the call of the pupil ; (3) no instruction shall be given 
upon the advanced lesson. It must never degenerate into 
helping children to get their lessons. Teachers must dis- 
cover in class recitation and by individual testing the needs 
of each child and direct the particular exercise which will 
remedy the deficiency. Attention to individuals aims to pre- 
vent retardation, to accelerate the progress of the class, and 
to aid more capable pupils to get into more advanced classes. 
The value of the system depends on the spirit in which it 
is carried out, but the need for individual instruction and 
for separate supervised study periods has been established 
beyond question. 

Flexible or shifting group plan. In various cities — Seattle, 
Denver, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, being among the pio- 
neers ■ — there have been adopted plans of organization vary- 
ing somewhat in detail from a plan outlined by Dr. W. T. 
Harris in the St. Louis reports of about 1870. The essence 
of all these is flexible grading, with groups progressing 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 131 

through the course of study at varying rates and pupils 
transferred from group to group at any time according to 
their individual needs. Under such a plan the beginning 
grade is tentatively separated into two groups at the end 
of the first week or two, one group consisting of the most 
capable third or half of the class. The slower group may 
be divided again after a month or so of further trial. The. 
groups remain in the same room under the instruction of 
the same teacher and in some exercises are taught together 
as a single class. Each group advances along the prescribed 
course of study as rapidly as it can do the work satisfac- 
torily. At the end of the year the middle group will have 
just about covered the requirements for the grade ; the slow 
group will lack about a fourth of completing the require- 
ments, and the rapid group will probably be one fourth 
through the work of the next session. During the second 
or third term the fast group will have overtaken the slow 
group which started one term earlier. These are then merged 
and proceed as one until another separation becomes desir- 
able. Some of the members of the section overtaken will 
be caught up and taken ahead with the more rapidly mov- 
ing group, and some of the rapidly moving section will be 
left to go for a while at the slower pace. Before long the 
middle group will have overtaken this same slow group 
and the rapid group will have overtaken the next group 
ahead. There is thus a constant merging and reclassifying, 
each group changing its personnel and taking its grade 
name, as 4 A, 5 B, etc., from its position in the course at 
the time. In each group there may be pupils who are going 
through the course at every possible rate of progress. Each 
child has the opportunity by outstripping his group to 
pass presently into one that moves more rapidly. If always 
among the best, he will finish an eight-year course in six 
to six and a half years. If always among the slowest he 



132 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

will require ten years or more. In neither case is there any 
reason for skipping or for being turned back over any por- 
tion of the work. The pupil who falls behind because of 
absence may do the lost work in a lower group while con- 
tinuing to advance with his own class or he may drop back 
into the next section and then work his way up by keeping 
at the head. The sifting is upward instead of downward. 
There are no "failures," but the poorest pupils advance 
only so fast as they are made thorough on the essentials. 
The abler ones increase their speed much as a man runs 
up a moving stairway, by moving from step to step as the 
steps themselves move upward. 

With semiannual or shorter intervals between the admis- 
sion of new classes, pupils should ordinarily advance from 
room to room only at the end of the term. Any teacher 
may thus be called upon to teach groups as much as a half 
term above or below that prescribed for his grade. A pupil 
might skip a given room without skipping any of its work. 

Flexible subject grouping. The grouping and advance- 
ment in the plan just outlined is based primarily upon 
fundamental attainments in the formal or basic subjects. It 
is usual to have distinct grouping in reading and number 
work in the primary classes ; and in arithmetic, language, 
geography, and history in the grammar grades. It will fre- 
quently happen that a pupil will make rapid progress in one 
subject while slow in another. This makes his particular 
weakness evident to himself and to his teacher, and he may 
devote more of his time and effort to that branch which is 
difficult for him and less to that in which he excels, until his 
rate of progress is fairly balanced. He may drop some sub- 
ject entirely while he is catching up in another. When a 
disparity of this sort is characteristic of many pupils it is an 
indication that the course of study is not well balanced or 
the teacher's methods need revision. In those subjects in 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 133 

which attainment is mure difficult to determine, as reading, 
or less essential to advancement, as penmanship or spelling, 
instead of two or three groups to a grade there may be only- 
one. In these subjects minimum capacities to do certain 
things should be prescribed as the necessary work of the 
grade. Abler pupils should be stimulated to higher attain- 
ments and the time they save through their greater abilities 
may be given either to enriching the work of any course or 
to more rapid progress in any subject. In the last year of 
the course there should be sufficient latitude in every sub- 
ject for those groups which would finish in the midst of a 
term to have abundant profitable occupation until the end 
of the session. 

Differentiated courses. This particular idea — varying 
breadth of the work for varying abilities rather than vary- 
ing rates of progress through the course — is made the basis 
of the form of organization known as the " differentiated 
course " plan, worked out at Santa Barbara, California. A 
course was prepared prescribing the minimum requirements 
for each grade, a second course indicated additional work 
which should supplement the minimum course for abler pu- 
pils, and a third course included still further enrichments. 
All pupils go forward at the same rate, but the extent of 
the instruction received in each grade is in proportion to 
the ability of the group. 

Essentials of flexibility. The essential element of any 
plan of organization which seeks to preserve the individu- 
ality and to develop the varying possibilities of every child 
seems to be flexibility. Until there are far more reliable 
means of determining whether apparent deficiencies of chil- 
dren are real or whether temporary limitations are perma- 
nent, even the wisest teachers should be very slow to separate 
children into permanent divisions. It is not nature's law 
that children should grow at an even rate. They develop 



134 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

by fits and starts. Their interests and their moods are 
changeable. In the effort to provide different sorts and 
grades of instruction to fit the needs of different sorts and 
grades of children, let us not assume that we have the knowl- 
edge or skill to fit the one to the other except in a general 
way. We must not forget that, whatever the native pos- 
sibilities of a child, our putting him in a special class and 
confining him to special kinds of instruction may give him 
the bias we assumed that he had or may prevent the devel- 
oping of the possibilities we assumed that he did not have. 
Permanent groupings tend to get any mind into a narrow 
rut at the time it most needs breadth. They fail to develop 
leadership in the stronger minds and fail to stimulate the 
weaker or less ambitious children. For these reasons, what- 
ever the size of the teaching corps, every teacher should 
have not less than two groups in charge at all times, with 
the continuous necessity of reclassifying the pupils accord- 
ing to their attainments. The teacher of such flexible groups 
should feel the constant responsibility for individual instruc- 
tion, for strengthening the weaker pupils and discovering 
the talent of the stronger ones. Under individual teaching 
the weaker pupils get the larger portion of the teacher's 
time and the stronger ones have more opportunity to rely 
upon themselves. 

Values of flexibility. The plan of flexible groups, com- 
bined perhaps with the differentiated course in some or all 
branches and certainly with the study periods and individual 
instruction of the Batavia system, seems to embody all the 
ideals of grading. Some of its advantages may be summed 
up thus : 

i. Its flexibility permits almost endless adaptations to 
varying conditions. 

2. Individual instruction and class organization are both 
provided for, and any variation of these may be utilized. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 135 

3. The evils of retardation and the difficulties of accelera- 
tion are mostly removed. Every child is placed where he 
may work to the limit of his capacity and progress directly 
as he succeeds. It need never be said that "to some there 
is effort without success ; to others success without effort." 

4. The incentive of advancement is constantly present 
to every child ; the reward for earnestness always sure, and 
in direct proportion to effort. 

5. The pressure is even throughout the session, not con- 
centrated into a dangerous strain at the time of examinations 
for promotion. 

6. It measures pupil and teacher alike by results, in terms 
of the pupil-capacities developed. 

7. The individual needs of each pupil become the prime 
study of the teacher and the supervisor. This makes for 
good teaching and a progressive teaching corps. 

8. The teacher must have a specific reason at any time for 
the precise classification of each child, and this reason becomes 
a guide for his teaching and for the child's own efforts. 

9. The attention of pupils, teachers, and supervising 
authorities and the content of the course of study are 
centered upon abilities developed instead of ground covered 
or time spent on a topic. 

10. The continual and inexhaustible stream of bright 
pupils coming up from below affords a constant stimulus 
to those who are going at a slower rate. There is no per- 
manent segregation of slow pupils into one class. 

1 1 . The plan may be made to combine every time-saving 
routine device in class organization and yet preserve personal 
touch and individual attention in instruction. 

Teachers who are mentally lazy and those who are pro- 
fessionally ossified invariably object to a flexible system of 
the sort. The very heart of it is that it keeps them think- 
ing, and demands an unending adjustment of course and 



136 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

method to immediate needs. Inaction and petrifaction can- 
not operate such a plan. Perhaps the greatest merit of the 
whole flexible scheme is that teachers of that sort must 
change or make their inefficiency obvious. Inexperienced 
and untrained teachers will find it only a little more difficult 
than a rigid routine system at first, and if worthy, they will 
quickly improve by means of its very requirements. If they 
cannot improve, they should not teach. Such a system 
inevitably means teacher- growth. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Investigate and sketch the school history of several children 
who failed in or repeated one or more grades in a rigid system 
of gradation. 

2. If possible, find the per cent of failures among pupils who 
have previously repeated some grade and compare with the per- 
centage for the whole school. Does repeating a grade seem to 
tend to more or less thoroughness ? 

3. State the desirable and objectionable features of the grading 
system used in your schools. 

4. Describe the best features of any grading system of your 
acquaintance which you regard as particularly good. 

5. How could you embody some of the advantages of flexible 
grading in your school system, even though the plan as a whole 
were not adopted ? What features of it could be adopted in a 
single grade, even without adoption by other grades ? 

READINGS 

Ayres. Laggards in our Schools. 
Bagley. Classroom Management, chap. xiv. 
Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chap. vii. 
Colgrove. The Teacher and the School, chap. v. 
Cubberly. Public School Administration, chap, xviii. 
Dutton. School Management, chap. vi. 

Dutton and Snedden. Administration of Public Education in the 
United States, chap. xix. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 137 

GILBERT. The School and its Life, chap. vii. 

GORDY. A Broader Elementary Education, chap. xxi. 

Hinsdale. Studies in Education, chap. xiv. 

JONES. Teaching Children to Study. 

McMURRY. Elementary School Standards, chaps, viii, ix. 

MUNSTERBERG. Psychology and the Teacher, chap, xxviii. 

PERRY. Management of a City School, chap. x. 

SEARCH. The Ideal School,' chaps, i, iii, vii. 

SEELEY. New School Management, chap. vi. 

STRAYER and THORNDIKE. Educational Administration, Part IV. 

TOMPKINS. School Management, pp. 1-24. 

United States Bureau of Education Bulletins 

Bulletin No. 14, 191 1, " Provision for Exceptional Children in the 
Public Schools " (Van Sickle, ct al.). 

Bulletin No. 42, 191 5, "Advancement of a Teacher with the Class" 
(Mahoney). 
United States Commissioner of Education 

Report, 1891-1892, pp. 601-636. 

Report, 1 898-1 899, pp. 330-346. 



CHAPTER XIII 

PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 

Promoting machinery. Every teacher has found difficulty 
at the close of the term in satisfying himself as to whether 
certain pupils should or should not be promoted. It is 
probable that he has found still more difficulty in satisfying 
other interested parties on this point. To avoid just these 
difficulties teaching traditions and school systems have built 
up an artificial mechanism of examinations, grades, and term 
marks to take the place of the teacher's decision and to 
bear the responsibility in the matter of promotions. Sup- 
ported by figures that " cannot lie," the teacher smugly 
assumes that his promoting machinery " is perfectly fair, 
because it treats all just alike." In fact, treating all just 
alike would necessarily be grossly unjust to all but a few ; 
for children, being quite unlike each other, need quite 
different treatment. And if it were just, it would still be 
impossible, for what affects one child in one way is sure 
to affect another child in another way. 

Nonpromotions. In a rigid grading system the promo- 
tion problem is truly the root of many evils. The doubtful 
pupil if promoted is likely to suffer through his poor prep- 
aration, while from his nonpromotion arise most of the 
disorders of the classroom, most of the discouragement, the 
sullenness and resentment, the charges of partiality and 
unfairness, together with endless friction, complications, and 
perhaps official interference. One failure tends to beget 
others, and the repetition of a grade is the first step to 
elimination from school on one excuse or another. The 

138 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 139 

consummate waste and crown of dishonor of a school system 
is the pupils it cannot hold, for elimination from school does 
not include elimination from the society for which the school 
was established. Sparta avoided a burdensome class of citi- 
zens, because those who were to be eliminated from educa- 
tion were first eliminated from the state by being abandoned 
to the wild beasts. Our civilization clings desperately to the 
mere existence of each individual, though often neglecting 
the greater duty of making that existence worth while to 
the individual and to society. 

There are teachers — a host of them — who pride them- 
selves that they head a certain proportion of their classes 
every year toward elimination, — that a certain part of their 
work is always waste. They call it "thoroughness" because 
they " never pass more than eighty per cent of any grade," 
whereas tJioroughiuss and the number passing have abso- 
lutely nothing to do with each other. In some schools, 
traditions would damn a teacher who did not "fail" some 
of every class. (Note the transitive use of the verb " fail.") 

The evils of retardation probably cannot be wholly avoided 
so long as grading systems are nonflexible. It is, then, all 
the more necessary to inflict the evil with the greatest dis- 
cretion and to turn back only those who certainly cannot 
profit by continuing longer with the same class. When 
demotion is unavoidable, it is all important to have the sym- 
pathy of the child and of his parents, and thus avoid the 
most serious evils arising from disappointment and lack of 
confidence. The pupil should feel that there is nothing 
arbitrary or accidental in the decision and that the lower 
grade is just the place where he can profit most. This is 
not "soft pedagogy" but hard sense, for the factor which 
contributes most to his next year's work and to his ultimate 
success is his attitude toward his classification and toward 
his teachers. 



140 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The customary agencies for determining the problem of 
promotions are examinations, tests, written work, grades on 
daily recitation, and the teacher's judgment. It is not prac- 
ticable to discuss here the various teaching values of these 
devices. Each is of large importance in pedagogical econ- 
omy, but our task here is to weigh them as criteria by 
which to judge the fitness of the doubtfid pupil for promotion. 

Examinations as basis of promotions. The formal exam- 
ination, despite its educative usefulness, has been thoroughly 
discredited as a sole basis of promotion. Let us summarize 
its status as such. 

i . It is not a reliable measure of attainment. Three sources 
of chance enter into its use ; the child's physical and mental 
condition at the time of the examination, the scope of the 
particular questions asked, and the different standards among 
teachers or of the same teacher at different times. Every 
day some pupils are unable to do themselves justice, while at 
the close of the fatiguing term, with all the strain of examina- 
tion conditions, it is certain that several members of almost 
any class will be in no shape to disclose their true ability on 
paper. Out of perhaps a hundred comprehensive questions 
on a course, usually ten are asked. It is possible that among 
several children of a grade who are able to answer just the 
same proportion of the hundred possible questions, one might 
know all of the ten actually asked, another half of that ten, 
and another none at all. While this extreme variation is 
unlikely, it is very commonly true that of two children of 
equal knowledge and ability, one gets 78 per cent on a given 
examination — and passes; tKe other 73 per cent — and fails. 
A like difference between failing and passing marks may 
easily be due to the condition of the teacher at the time of 
grading. It may arise out of the difference between the 
teacher's mental condition when starting in on a pile of 
papers at eight o'clock p.m., and when finishing them at 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 141 

one a.m., while the variations due to the condition of his 
digestion, the temper of the superintendent on his last visit, 
or to the more intimate affairs of the teacher will make a 
decided difference in the average of the class. An investiga- 
tion made at the University of Wisconsin showed that a 
large number of high-school teachers, all well prepared and 
teaching practically identical courses, conditions being as 
nearly standardized as can be found anywhere in this coun- 
try, graded the same identical paper all the way from 54 per 
cent to 96 per cent, with the majority grading close around 
the passing mark, about as many "failing" as "passing" 
the paper. 

2. So far as the formal examination does test anything, it 
tests appearances rather than real attainments, verbal memory 
rather than more useful abilities, the crammed knowledge of 
the examination day rather than the abilities which will be 
available in later life. 

3. It has a pernicious effect on a pupil's study and habits 
of study. It puts a premium on neglecting work through 
the term and on cramming just before examination. It re- 
wards skill in " spotting the teacher," " bluffing," memoriz- 
ing, and other temporary makeshifts rather than on a true 
love of knowledge and desire for permanent growth. 

4. It is the devil's own device for leading pupils into 
temptation. Our civilization is disgraced by our putting this 
premium on dishonesty. We have had to build around it a 
special code of honor to meet the emergency. Supposedly 
respectable young people are required to do something which 
is parallel to being required to sign a pledge that they have 
not stolen anything whenever they are left alone in a 
neighbor's house. 

5. As an incentive to work, it fails to stimulate those who 
are most in need of being aroused, while the oversensitive 
and too ambitious are affected beyond reason or profit. 



142 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

6. The physical strain arising from examination promo- 
tions has brought nervous breakdown and even death to 
hundreds of the most ambitious and deserving children. 
The unspeakable horror and pity of child suicide has often 
been chargeable to the same stupid requirement. 

Examinations held monthly instead of once a term may 
have the advantage of decreasing the strain at any one time 
and of lessening the element of chance, but this plan multi- 
plies the occasions of temptation, strain, and interruption 
of regular work. 

Informal tests. Informal and unexpected tests, oral or 
written, devised to disclose specific needs to the pupil as 
well as to the teacher and to correct the teaching process 
from time to time, besides being among the most useful of 
teaching devices are invaluable in determining the actual 
abilities of the pupil. A record of these tests would be a 
safe basis of judging what the pupil could do at the time 
they were given. But, with good teaching, it should be 
almost certain that each deficiency disclosed by the tests 
would, by the very fact of its disclosure, be removed before 
the end of the term. The tests are thus better records of 
what the pupils have done than of what they can do. 

Daily grades. The last objection would naturally apply 
in some degree to the use of daily grades as a measure of 
fitness for promotion. To a good teacher the finding of 
a defect in recitation means its remedy in instruction. A 
numerical record of daily recitations, too, will undoubtedly 
discriminate in favor of that type of children who have assur- 
ance and readiness rather than those of slower and deeper 
thinking. Under, many teachers daily grades put a heavy 
premium on "bluffing." The very keeping of such records 
is cumbersome, interferes with the teacher's spontaneity 
and enthusiasm, and forces many mechanical qualities into 
the lesson. Marking up at the close of the lesson instead 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 143 

of at the moment merely purchases reduced meehanism at 
the cost of reduced accuracy in grading. 

Teacher's judgment. The "teacher's judgment" is advo- 
cated by some as the only safe criterion, but (1) this may 
mean merely the teacher's likes and dislikes, or (2) granting 
impartiality, it subjects the teacher to charges of partiality, 
and (3) it assumes that a purely subjective judgment should 
be used without rather than with the objective aids which 
have been devised expressly to guide that judgment. Intelli- 
gent judgment makes use of all the facts that can be obtained. 
When the term " teacher's judgment " is used to exclude all 
data except the judgment itself, it really means the teacher's 
feeling, impression, or prejudice. 

Combinations. Other plans of promotion combine two or 
more of the factors mentioned above in various proportions, 
to determine the vital question of promotion or demotion. 
It is common to let examinations, tests, and teacher's judg- 
ment each count one third ; or examinations one half, and 
daily grades and teacher's opinion one fourth each. 

Cooperative classification. A very successful plan is to 
require every teacher to make out early in the term a tenta- 
tive list of the pupils who are reasonably sure to pass, one 
of those who will probably pass if their standing does fiot 
fall lower, and one of those who are likely to fail unless 
their work is improved. All of the last group, and any who 
may fall into it from time to time, are specially warned, 
stimulated, and strengthened at their points of weakness. 
Parents are called into conference and everything possible 
is done to get them over into the safe list. These lists are 
frequently revised during the term in conference with the 
principal. The uncertain list should be reduced to not 
more than ten per cent of the class by the end of the term. 
The hopeless ones will have been put back where they can 
work with hope and profit as soon as the impossibility of 



144 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

their catching up is conceded by all. All that must fail have 
then been fully warned, have been given every guidance and 
assistance, and are fully appreciative of both the necessity 
and the reason for their failure to be promoted. 

Principles of promotion. Following is a summary of prin- 
ciples that should guide in the matter of promotion. 

1. Promotion shall not be based on a single test nor a 
set of tests given at a single time. 

2. It shall not be dependent on a single sort of measure- 
ment however often applied. 

3. It shall not be dependent on any purely quantitative 
or mathematical grade or combination of grades. There is 
no 100 per' cent perfection in any mental trait nor is there 
any zero point to be found among school children. Still 
less is there any mathematical point, such as 75 per cent, 
which marks the distinction between success and failure. 

4. It shall be a gradual process, beginning when the 
year's work begins and based on every task. 

5. It shall be a cooperative process in which the child 
is consciously participating. Definite standards of efficiency 
by which the child can daily judge his own work shall be 
kept before him. He shall be required to criticize constantly 
his own attainments, discover his deficiencies, and record 
his own standing. 

6. The reports to parents, as discussed later, shall be 
such as to keep them fully aware of the probability of 
advancement and the means of avoiding demotion. No 
friction should ever arise from questions of promotion. 

7. Such can and should be the spirit of the school and 
of its relations to parents that promotion would never be 
thought of as a matter of favoritism. Neither teacher nor 
pupil should regard promoting a child as favoring him or re- 
tarding him as a point on which there could be a difference 
of desire between them. 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 145 

<S. It is not the teacher's business to size and reject but 
to detect and to demonstrate to the- pupil his deficiencies 
and to guide him in remedying them. 

A teacher who cannot locate the pupil's difficulty early 
in the year and plan with him its remedy, who does not 
know until the term is over that the child's work is not 
sufficient for his promotion, should not be intrusted with 
the decision of the matter. 

Pupil participation. Keeping pupils in suspense as to 
their promotion is an objectionable sort of incentive. It 
induces cramming and spasmodic effort rather than sus- 
tained work. The same pressure may be used and its good 
effects made habitual by means of flexible grading and the 
pupil's conscious participation in his own classification. 
Reward for effort, like punishment for wrongdoing, should 
be so sure and so prompt and so obviously self-acting, that, 
just as soon as a child has done his duty well, he should 
know that so far as that task is concerned he is already 
promoted. Whenever a task has been slighted he should 
feel that sooner or later it will inevitably and automatically 
retard him by perfectlv natural laws. In a word, the rigid 
and arbitrary must give way before the flexible and sympa- 
thetic, in matters of grading and organization. More than 
any other change in management this will remove friction, 
ill feeling, injustice, and waste. 

Partial promotions. No pupil should be required to keep 
on doing something he does not need to do in order to 
catch up in something he does need. If the work in one 
subject must be repeated, there must be provision for some 
means of his utilizing the rest of his time at something in 
which he can progress and keep interested or, if necessary, 
he might better be excused from school during that sur- 
plus time. A mechanical, lock-step organization, which de- 
mands either idleness or the repeating of tasks of no further 



146 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

educative value, is absolutely hostile to all aims and conditions 
of good teaching. 

Conditions. When a promotion is made conditional upon 
subsequent work, the condition should be tried out in the 
upper rather than the lower grade. The question at issue 
is whether the child can do the work of the higher grade, 
which obviously cannot be tested elsewhere. In case the 
promotion is not made permanent, the pupil has lost 
nothing new by his absence from the lower grade ; but if 
he is to work in the upper grade the loss of the few days' 
trial would prove irremediable to a pupil already doubtful. 

Continuous promoting. Under a truly flexible scheme 
promotions are not solely from grade to grade nor only at 
stated times, but daily some pupils are passed up on an 
assigned lesson or topic while others are held back for 
further study and instruction. When one boy can add 
fractions proficiently, it is absurd to keep him learning how 
to add them because slower pupils have not yet mastered 
the art. Such management would be on a par with keeping 
a man working on a job after it was finished because his 
fellow workmen in the shop had not completed theirs. In 
no other industry would the necessity of handling the 
workers in classes or masses be offered as an excuse for 
keeping one laborer on a task after he had finished it or 
leaving the work of another uncompleted because he was 
slow. Every man must have some duty to work at, or he 
should "knock off." The standards of efficient school man- 
agement need not be inferior in this respect. The segre- 
gation of the pupils of a given group according to their indi- 
vidual needs may not be practicable for lectures, demonstra- 
tions, and development lessons, but it certainly is practicable 
for study, drills, exercises, and practice problems. 

Efficiency advancement. In penmanship there should be 
a standard of excellence for each grade, such as is easily 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 147 

afforded by the Ayres scale, and any pupil whose written 
work outside of the writing class never falls below that 
standard should not be required to take the writing drills. 
At any time when his regular work falls below the standard 
or fails to show a natural and continuous growth in excel- 
lence, he should be automatically returned to the drill class. 
By this means a few pupils may require little more than 
occasional corrective suggestions in writing after they leave 
the primary grades. With good standards in the school and 
the habit of doing one's best all the time, daily work should 
give an abundance of penmanship training of a much more 
effective sort than the detached writing drill. For some 
pupils, writing drills during a few weeks each year will suf- 
fice, whereas others require a great deal of special training 
to get the necessary muscular coordination. In the latter 
part of the year writing classes should be small or entirely 
lacking, but standards of writing in daily exercises very 
high. Such an automatic promotion out of a drill class 
serves as an incentive to do all one's writing well, which 
is the only writing excellence worth seeking. It secures 
better penmanship than constant drilling can ; it avoids the 
very real danger of "overtraining"; it fixes attention of 
pupil and teacher upon individual needs ; and it affords a 
very great economy in time. 

Spelling drills might well be organized on the same basis. 
The essence of good spelling is not a memory stocked like 
a dictionary. It is the habit of always spelling correctly 
words that one already knows and never using a new 
word without finding out how to spell it. The " incidental 
method " of teaching spelling depends on this faithful per- 
sistence for its success. By having the drills only for those 
who need them and only to the extent that they need them, 
while others are automatically excused from the spelling 
class so long as they spell correctly in all their written 



148 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

work, all the economies and increased efficiency of the 
incidental method are attained, but without the risk of 
leaving some who do not respond to that method unable 
to spell. 

Scientific tests and scales. Rapid progress is being made 
at the present time in the development of scientific meas- 
ures of efficiency in the more fundamental school abilities. 
Various tests in arithmetic, spelling, writing, and possibly 
some in other subjects have sufficiently passed the experi- 
mental stage to be used in a practical way, but thus far 
they are adapted rather to measuring schools and teachers 
than to determining the fitness of individual pupils for pro- 
motion. Much is to be hoped for from progress in this 
direction, particularly in demonstrating to the teachers of 
a system or the pupils of a school the need of advancing 
their standards of proficiency. Principals, at least, should be 
familiar with the use of these tests. 



PROBLEMS 

1. What custom prevails regarding the percentage of pupils 
that are promoted in your school? How does this vary from 
grade to grade or department to department ? Inquire among 
the teachers separately as to what they regard as the ideal 
practice. 

2. Among retarded pupils how many are doing better work 
the second year in a grade than they did the first year? 

3. Find out by frank conferences with students and former 
students what effects examinations had upon the regularity of 
study ; upon the quality of study. Do examinations seem to 
make more for consistent or for spasmodic study ? What con- 
clusion would you draw from a statement that examinations make 
some pupils study who would not study without them ? 

4. What evidence have- you that examinations have had a good 
or bad moral influence ? 



PROMOTIONS AND PUPIL PROGRESS 149 

5. What evidence is there of physical injury ? Would injury 
occur if the examinations were not used for promotion purposes ? 

6. Determine by observation what effect the marking of each 
answer at the time has upon the force and enthusiasm of an 
oral recitation. 

7. What is the practice at your school regarding the retarda- 
tion of a pupil for deficiency in one or two subjects ? Determine 
by observation and inquiry what effect this practice has upon 
the retarded pupil's progress in the deficient subjects ; in the 
other subjects. 

8. Study the work of some class with a view to determining 
how much of the time pupils are spending on work they do not 
need to do ; how much on trying to do what they cannot do. 
What is the effect of this sort of work upon their study habits ? 

READINGS 

AYRES. Laggards in Our Schools. 

Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chaps, iii, vii. 

COLGROVE. The Teacher and the School, chap. xi. 

Dutton. School Management, p. 84. 

Judd. Measuring the Work of the Public Schools. Cleveland School 

Survey. 
McMurry. Elementary School Standards. 
Seelev. New School Management, chaps, xiv, xv. 
Seerley. The Country School, chap. xii. 
Starch. Educational Measurements. 

Strayer. A Brief Course in the Teaching Process, chap. xix. 
Strayer and Thorndike. Educational Administration, chaps, i, iv. 
White. Art of Teaching, chaps, xiii, xiv. 



CHAPTER XIV 

MARKING SYSTEMS 

Frequency. In keeping the record of pupils' work 
there is wide diversity of practice. Some teachers labo- 
riously record a grade for every recitation made, every 
paper handed in, and every test and examination. Others 
estimate a grade weekly. Quite common is the custom of 
grading pupils at the end of every month with or without 
the aid of written tests or examinations. Again, the daily, 
weekly, or occasional grades may be combined to make up 
the monthly grade. Term grades are usually made up by 
combining these monthly or more frequent markings with 
the examination standing. The frequency of this grading 
may be a matter of individual choice, and different tempera- 
ments seem to work best under different plans, but in some 
rigid systems every detail of the grading plan is prescribed. 

Numerical grades. A "per-cent method" of grading is 
a frequent concomitant of mechanical organization. Daily 
recitations are graded on a scale of 10, and examinations 
on a scale of ioo. The obvious difficulty of grading 
a daily recitation when different questions demand utterly 
different kinds and quantities of thought to answer, has 
tended to simplify the daily marking to a scale of 5 or 3. 
We have already noted the difficulty in determining the 
significance of numerical grades. Since the child's attain- 
ment in any knowledge or power of sufficient consequence 
to be recorded is necessarily incomplete and could not be 
regarded as perfection, what is the 100-per-cent ideal? 
What is the zero point of no knowledge at all ? Does 

150 . 



MARKING SYSTEMS 151 

50 per cent mean half knowing a lesson, knowing half 
a lesson, knowing half as much as the teacher knows, 
half as much as the text, half what the pupil ought to 
know, or half what lie could know? Perhaps the usual 
opinion would be that 100 per cent means that the pupil 
has done the task assigned as well as could be expected 
of him ; zero means that he has done nothing worth while ; 
50 per cent, that he has done half the work assigned ; and 
75, or a pass mark, that he has done just as little as he 
should be allowed to get away with and not be required 
to do the work over again. These grades are almost uni- 
versally given for absolute results, not for educative values 
nor yet for effort. One gets 90 per cent with practically 
no effort and hence no educative advantage to himself, 
while another gets 50 per cent after plodding for hours 
in conscientious effort to accomplish the task. We have 
already indicated the total unreliability of such marks, even 
for indicating the value of what has been written on an 
examination paper. That they utterly fail to indicate actual 
pupil-ability is easily demonstrated. 

At best we are setting up a mathematical standard of 
measuring something, we scarcely know what, which is 
certainly not capable of any such nice distinctions. We 
have persuaded the pupils and the public and ourselves 
to believe in something that has no foundation but tradi- 
tion. It is just on a par with the divine right and rectitude 
of royalty and the direct curative power of drugs. All 
are beautifully simple, direct, easy-to-follow ideas — the 
kind people like to be humbugged with. How simple life 
and teaching would be were such things true — also how 
static, mechanical, and uninspiring ! Such views of life have 
the common fault that they stand squarely in the way of 
the development of a science, whether of government, 
of medicine, or of teaching. 



152 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Modern scientific measurement of mental and social 
traits is an utterly different matter from that of which 
we are speaking. Such measurements deal with but a 
single trait at a time, while school grades always do and 
should deal with complicated abilities. The former deal 
with averages of groups, or of oft-repeated identical tests, 
or with relative rankings, and are as much concerned 
with sources and amounts of error as with the average 
or mean itself. 

Qualitative terms. Where the quantitative grading has 
been discarded, often a qualitative series of terms has 
been substituted. A typical series would run : excellent, 
very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor. Originally 
merely descriptive, these innocent terms soon acquired an 
arbitrary significance. They were explained in term's of the 
inexplicable. Rules were promulgated to some such effect 
as this : Excellent means from 95 to 100 per cent, very 
good means from 85 to 95 per cent, good means from 75 
to 85 per cent, etc. Seventy-five still being, perhaps, the 
passing mark, it is often true that "fair" means not fit to 
pass, and "good" means just good enough to avoid being 
sent back. The situation is quite analogous to the grading 
of butter in which the poorest marketable was ' ' fancy 
and good butter was " XXXX," or extra to the fourth 
degree. Inevitably such descriptive grading marks will lose 
their meaning. 

Letters. The next step forward was to adopt marks 
which in themselves are meaningless, as A, B, C, D ; but 
these likewise were soon arbitrarily translated into per cents, 
or for emphasis teachers were prone to give AA or possibly 
FF — whatever these could precisely mean. 

If the grading is to be done in per cents, there is not 
much use in translating them into some other symbols and 
then explaining these by a convenient note on the report 



MARKING SYSTEMS 153 

so that they may readily be translated back into the per 
cents. It is true that a " C " or a " good " does not make 
pretense of a distinction between jy per cent and 79 per 
cent or 82 per cent, but it does make a fatal barrier 
between 74 per cent and 75 per cent. 

Departmental variations. Further indication of the unre- 
liability of all these systems of grading — word, figure, or 
letter — are evidenced by the grading of different teachers 
on the same group of children. In every high school, col- 
lege, or other institution where departmental teaching pre- 
vails not lung is better established than that some teachers 
are chronically severe markers while others are notoriously 
easy. One will characteristically, year after year, report 
about thirty per cent of every class A's and perhaps twenty 
per cent C's ; while another dealing with the same identical 
pupils will perhaps run about five per cent A's and seventy 
per cent graded C or lower. The high grades of the one 
may be variously interpreted as signs of thorough teaching 
or of slack examining ; and the low grades of another as an 
indication of poor teaching or of severe testing. At any 
rate, the low-marking disposition has usually been the most 
assertive and has assumed the "thoroughness" pose, over- 
looking the fact that thoroughness in teaching a course 
should show a very high final grading. 

Normal distribution. The demonstrable lack of any fixed 
relation between a mark and the ability which it is supposed 
to measure has led students of scientific measurements to 
conclude that the only reliable grade is an approximate 
relative ranking. One cannot say how much ability of a 
certain sort a pupil may have, but one can tell with reason- 
able accuracy whether he has more or less than most of his 
group, and usually whether he has more or less than any 
other given individual. It is also true that in any trait or 
ability there will be in every group not specially selected 



154 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

a normal distribution ; that is, there will be very few of 
very high ability, more of medium high, a large proportion 
of average ability, and a similar tapering off at the lower 
end of the curve. Every school class is, with reference to 
the work of that grade, a normal group. Whatever is the 
average or mean ability of the class, the majority will cluster 
closely around it. The farther we go above or below that 
mean, the fewer individuals will be found. There is always 
an average or mean attainment which is to be expected of 
any class and for which the class itself is not responsible. 
The teacher may pitch the requirements too high or too 
low for the preparation of the grade. His method may 
result in a few things being taught very thoroughly or many 
things very poorly, or possibly many things well or a few 
things poorly. In any case, an examination given by the 
teacher himself may result in high grades or low ones, 
absolutely without relation to the educative value of his 
course. This " personal equation " may involve no insin- 
cerity or favoritism. However the grades may be given, 
the fact always is that a few pupils in the class are far 
better than the average,. the number increasing toward the 
average and decreasing in the same general ratio to the 
one or two worst ones. Certain conditions may " skew " 
this curve a little either way ; for example, the instruction 
might be of such a sort that many would reach a certain 
proficiency and none could possibly exceed it, or by extra care 
with the backward ones the poorest might be brought to a 
minimum efficiency which is close to the average attainment. 
Relative ranking. It has therefore been found that the 
fairest and the only reliable way to grade is simply to make 
an arbitrary division of the class approximating the normal dis- 
tribution curve and require each teacher to rank a fixed pro- 
portion of the class in each of these divisions. For instance, 
in any class there will be found 5 to 10 per cent who are 



MARKING SYSTEMS 155 

excellent as compared with the rest of the class ; about twice 
as many who are very good ; 40 or 50 per cent who are 
somewhere around the average ; about as many are poor as 
are very good ; and as many are very poor as are excellent. 
The grades of every teacher should show just such a distribu- 
tion, whatever the scope of the marks he uses. This normal 
distribution curve is more nearly the mathematically exact 
truth than any other grading of their work or papers could be. 
This is the safest measurement that we have any means of 
substantiating. When it has been decided how many indi- 
viduals shall be graded " A " or " excellent in a given class 
it is not hard to select them, and there is little more difficulty 
in placing the others in the required groups. We cannot 
presume to state how mucJi ability a pupil has nor hozu 
valuable his work has been, but we can state his relative 
standing in the class with reasonable accuracy. 

A very satisfactory plan and one which has proved easy 
to use is to let A mean "one of the best quarter of the 
class " ; let B mean " one of the second best quarter" ; let C 
mean all the others who have done a passing quality of 
work ; and let D mean that the work so marked is not ac- 
ceptable or up to passing requirements. It should not be the 
policy of the school arbitrarily to require any to fail '; there- 
fore abundant notice, special instruction, and frequent re- 
classification should eliminate D's from the final marks. 
Any other fixed meaning to these grades, so long as it 
is clearly defined in terms of class ranking, is permis- 
sible. Some school officials prefer only two grades on work 
that is passed. In this case it is important only to indicate 
what proportion of the class must receive A and what 
proportion must receive B. Others insist on allowing no 
other distinction than " acceptable " or " unacceptable " to 
be applied to any recitation, examination, or final grade. 
Whether finer distinctions than these have any reliability 



156 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

when converted into measures of the abilities needed in life 
may be a question ; but it is difficult to find any educative 
value in making them. 

Awarding honors by chance. Our tradition-trodden peda- 
gogue replies that we need these fine distinctions as a basis 
of awarding honors and prizes if not for promotion. One 
high-school graduate is awarded a medal or the honor of 
being valedictorian of the class on the ground of having 
made a general average of 97 \ § per cent as opposed to 
another's 97^| per cent ! Can such things be ? and educa- 
tion purporting to be a science ! My reader will bear me 
out that such things are and that they are accepted seri- 
ously by the pupils, by the parents, and by the teachers. 
Between these two pupils there may be a difference of 1 per 
cent or of 40 per cent of effective ability in favor of either 
one. How infinitely fairer to toss a coin for the honor, if 
there be but one to award, and let it be known that both 
deserve it — equally, so far as anyone knows ! 

Instructive grading. That marks of any sort, numerical 
or otherwise, do in a general way indicate the relative abilities 
and attainments of the children, no one doubts ; but the 
evidence we have for this belief is what we know without 
the marks. Why do we need so cumbersome a means of 
telling what we already know ? That they do serve, in a 
manner, as an incentive is equally obvious. But it is also 
evident that they commonly stimulate those who least need 
it and are of no effect on those who need it most. As reward 
for effort, it has been indicated that they are more likely to 
reward inherited brilliancy than deserving effort. By so 
doing they as often tend to make the favored ones idle 
and the unfortunate ones discouraged as they accomplish 
the intended spurring up of the lazy ones. As a conven- 
ience to the teacher in determining the relative ranking of 
pupils or in keeping memoranda for his own use, any of 



MARKING SYSTEMS 157 

these marking schemes may be of considerable value. When- 
ever mere valuing of the pupil's work by this means inter- 
feres with the pointing out and remedying of defects, the 
marking is doing more harm than good. Grading should 
be more instructive and less judicial. It is of little conse- 
quence to the pupil or anyone else whether he gets a 
" perfectly fair mark " or any mark at all, but it is vitally 
important that he be helped to remedy each fault as eco- 
nomically and as permanently as possible. Pupils and 
parents may demand exact grades, but pupils and parents 
take their cue from the customs of the school. When we 
have with sufficient clearness laid our emphasis upon the 
correcting of specific faults and the developing of definite 
abilities and have reorganized our school traditions accord- 
ingly, there will be the same demand for these on the part 
of parents. Let us not be anxious either about the incentive. 
" Accurate in all fundamentals and in the use of the 
decimal point " is just as stimulating and far more exact a 
grade than " B plus " or "91I per cent." 

PROBLEMS 

1. By inquiry among several teachers find what proportion of 
them in grading a paper mark down for spelling, punctuation, 
penmanship, English, or general appearance. 

2. Select a few average papers on different subjects and have 
each of them graded by several different teachers. Give no instruc- 
tions except that each is to grade as if the paper were from his 
own class and no mark is to be made on the paper. What do 
these marks indicate as to the absolute value of the grading ? 

3. Have several teachers who use letters or words for grading 
indicate exactly what they mean by each grade given. (Assuming 
that the meaning of the term has not been specified by regulation.) 

4. Tabulate the grades given in any one examination or in any 
year by the several instructors in any school conducted on the 



158 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

departmental plan. Graph these results for comparison. Compare 
the marks of different instructors for the same group of pupils. 

5. By inquiry among students, determine which instructors are 
regarded as " hard " and which as " easy markers." 

READINGS 

Bagley. Classroom Management, p. 248. 

Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chaps, iii, viii. 

Dutton. School Management, p. 100. 

Salisbury. School Management, p. 188. 

Seeley. A New School Management, chap. xiii. 

Strayer and Norsworthy. How to Teach, chap. xv. 

White. School Management, pp. 154-158. 



CHAPTER XV 

REPORTS TO PARENTS 

Effects of the usual type of report. It is a common cus- 
tom to send reports of the pupil's progress to parents at 
regular intervals, usually monthly. These ordinarily state 
the absences, times tardy, and give the recorded grade on 
"deportment" and on each subject studied. Grades are 
given in per cents or some of the other symbols already 
described which are often translated into per cents by an 
explanatory statement. So frequent was it for children who 
had unfavorable records to intercept these reports, even 
though sent by mail, that cards or booklets to be signed 
by the parent and returned to the teacher have come into 
general use. It is not uncommon for the pupil even to forge 
the parent's signature to these. Naturally the child who 
tampers with his reports is the one most in need of a full 
understanding between teacher and parent as to his progress. 

Parents receiving these typical reports have no guidance 
as to the treatment which should be given the child. Most 
of them regard the report merely as a form of expressing 
approval or disapproval of the child. If the grades are low, 
the more interested parent may give the child a scolding, 
or force him to longer hours of home study, even though 
too long hours of misdirected study may be the chief cause 
of the low grades. Two children of the same family have 
been known to bring home reports on the same day, one 
with the mark of 87 per cent in English, the other of 
92 per cent in the same subject. But the 87 per cent was 
the highest mark given in the one class, while the 92 per 

159 



160 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

cent was below the average in the other, and the 87 per 
cent represented much more and better work than did the 
92 per cent. The conscientious parents, not having the other 
grades given in the two classes before them, reproved the 
87 per cent pupil but rewarded the other and held him up 
as a good example. This extreme case indicates how little 
the reports actually tell of the pupils' progress. 

Too familiar to need discussion is the pathetic sight of 
groups of children comparing grades on the first of the 
month : the pupil who has got 79 per cent crowing over 
another who has got y6 per cent by means of twice as 
much deserving effort and educative painstaking. Children 
who have grown up through long years of judging and 
being judged in terms of these figures that have so little 
relation to any genuine measure of worth are in proper 
training for the "dementia Americana," which is said 
to measure all human worth in terms of the bank account, 
however attained. 

What the report should do. The report on the pupil should 
give genuinely intelligible information by which the parent 
may know not only how the pupil stands as compared to 
what is expected of him and what is realized by the class 
as a whole, but specific information as to the nature of his 
weakness and the way in which the parent may cooperate 
for the child's better progress. It should make as clear as 
possible what the teacher's plans and efforts for the child 
are. It should bring about a more sympathetic and cordial 
relation between the parent and the school. It should ex- 
press the teacher's interest in the child and show his desire 
to do something more than the routine and perfunctory 
duties of the classroom. It should have a personal char- 
acter. It should afford a basis of better understanding be- 
tween the child and parent and a practical starting point 
for effective cooperation. 



REPORTS TO PARENTS 161 

A satisfactory form. A form of report which seems to 
have accomplished these aims in actual use is prefaced by 
the following explanatory statement : 

To Parents : 

This report is sent you with a view to giving a clear statement 
of the pupil's progress, his standing in his classes, and his individual 
needs. 

The pupil has been asked to read the report and discuss with 
the teacher anything that is not clear to him. 

We believe that when the pupil, his parents, and his teacher 
thoroughly understand each other and join in studying the pupil's 
needs they will be able to secure the most favorable conditions 
practicable for his advancement and development. 

1 Mease remember always that we have no other aim than the 
pupil's progress in the kind of education that seems most worth 
while, that we are glad to talk over our plans and policies with you, 
and that we welcome your friendly suggestions and cooperation. 

The letters following the name of a subject indicate the teacher's 
judgment as to the pupil's standing compared with the other mem- 
bers of that class : A means that in this subject he stands in the 
best quarter of the class ; B means that he is in the next best 
quarter — above the average but not among the best ; C means 
that he is doing only average work with a reasonable prospect of 
passing up with his grade ; D means that the work is poor and if 
not improved he will probably be unable to continue the work with 
the grade. Every D should have the combined attention of the 
teacher, parents, and pupil, to remedy the difficulty which causes it. 

Note especially the grades on Deportment and Application. One 
is not always at fault because his grades in studies are low, but his 
conduct and his effort are within his control. These show how 
he is trying and indicate more than all other grades what his 
final success in school and in life will be. 

Watch the reports of Tardiness and Absences. We cannot 
teach children if they are not at school. Every case of irregularity 
in prompt attendance is a serious loss to the child and an interrup- 
tion to his class. This is your responsibility. Please have him on 
time every day. 



162 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Please note carefully all criticisms and requests of the teacher 
and write on the opposite page any questions you may desire to 
ask, any suggestions that you think would be helpful, and say what 
steps we may count on your taking toward carrying out the 
suggestions of the teacher for the good of the child. 

Its use. This is followed by the grades according to the 
plan indicated, and there is abundant space for comment by 
the teacher and for the parent's responses. The following in- 
structions were given the teachers as to the use of the reports : 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE PUPILS' 
MONTHLY REPORTS 

Pupils in Group A [advanced group in flexible system] of any 
grade will ordinarily be marked A or B. Every " D " is to be a 
matter of investigation and conference with the principal and must 
be followed up from month to month with further reports until the 
defect has been remedied as far as possible. The " D " must be 
a decided stimulus, though not a whip. It should serve definitely 
as a warning and be made the subject of consultation with the 
pupil so that no pupil or parent will have the slightest surprise in 
case of retardation. 

Seek to make some kindly and helpful comment on every report. 
Encouragement, discreet praise, warnings, inquiries as to home 
situations that affect school work, are all in order, but most impor- 
tant are practical suggestions looking to more effective progress. 
Avoid general criticisms or vague suggestions. Most parents do not 
know how to help children wisely. If you wish their cooperation, 
indicate exactly how it is to be done. 

Let your comments show that " D " means danger. When a 
pupil makes " D " it is your business to know the exact nature of 
his trouble and to be able to make it pretty clear to both him and 
his parents. Call the principal's attention to every " D " and your 
comment on it before the report goes out. 

Do not allow comments to become mechanical or stereotyped. 
Let them breathe a spirit of cooperation and genuine personal 



REPORTS TO PARENTS 163 

interest. Make them suggestive and advisory — never dogmatic 
or censorious. Invite suggestions and conferences. 

Be generous with commendation for genuine effort and im- 
provement, especially with pupils who are weak or easily discour- 
aged. The more generously you commend, the more weight your 
adverse comment will have without being unduly harsh. 

Avoid comments on natural ability or lack of it. The marks 
sufficiently indicate absolute attainments. Consult parents privately 
regarding treatment of defects or provision for native brilliancy. 

All severe or doubtful criticisms should be referred to the 
principal before being sent out. 

Comments must be carefully thought out during the month. 
They cannot wisely be left till the day the reports are due. The 
mere grading is very easy and can be done with little effort, but 
the comments require time and thoughtful planning. 

Follow up your com ments. Once a need for improvement is 
pointed out keep on pointing it out until you get the improvement. 

Specimen comments. The teachers' comments and the 
parents' replies have been a revelation and an inspiration. 
The splendid human quality of many of these cannot be 
indicated out of their setting, but some extracts taken almost 
at random indicate something of the range they may have. 

"G has not improved in his reading. Please have him pro- 
nounce the hard words to you. In geography he did not measure 
his map carefully. I am disappointed in his conduct for he talks 
sometimes and keeps others from paying attention." (Reply) 
" Sorry to get report of my boy's misbehavior and hope it will not 
occur in future. If you could let me know of his bad conduct at 
once I will see that he gets punished at home. I want to coop- 
erate with his teacher in every way that I can." (Next month) 
" George has improved as much or more than any child in the 
class. If he is careful all the time with his writing, he may get 
into the A group." 

" P , you see, has improved in almost every class. I am 

proud of his effort. He may begin to write with ink as soon as 



1 64 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

he can keep his letters uniform." (Reply) " I am glad to see that 
he has improved. I shall let him practice with pen and ink here at 
home if you say so." 

" C has improved very much in some ways. He is still 

careless about the work and the papers that he has at home. He 
asks to be excused quite often and stays out too long." 

(On a deficient pupil) " P 's letter, written Thursday, was 

beautifully done. I hope he will always take such pains with his 
writing. As a rule his letters are too cramped. His number work 
has improved with his trying and our extra work together. He 
should do still more of this work with numbers. In drawing he 
should listen more carefully to directions." 

" F 's conduct is not graded higher because he disturbs 

other people sometimes and he sits too lazily." 

"It is a pleasure to have M . She is timid and will not 

speak out in reading. This keeps her from getting A. If you will 
help her to overcome this, I think she will be my best reader. She 

is not sure of herself in multiplication." (Next month) " M is 

improving in her reading and speaks out quite distinctly." 

(A boy whose father complained to the Superintendent that he 
had no work to do at home. The complaint was not repeated after 

this report arrived.) " I don't think J puts quite enough time 

on his home work. He could easily get A in reading. His spell- 
ing is improving. He is not accurate in multiplication and I should 
be glad if you would practice him at home." (Next month) 
" J 's work has improved this month." 

" I hope H will work harder and do as well in other sub- 
jects as he does in number." (Parent's reply covers whole back of 
report. Expresses appreciation and desire to cooperate and points 
out that trouble was largely due to the fact that the child seldom 
knew just what was required of him. He was slow and commonly 
did not get all the spelling list from the board or did not know 
just what was expected of him in other assignments. Close of reply) 

" Please, Miss /impress upon him as plainly as possible what 

his studies are, and you may be assured that I will do my best to 
promote his progress and see that he comes up to the rules, for 
/ do so want my boy to do well in school," 



REPORTS TO PARENTS 165 

" We missed E very much while she was absent. She 

helps to make the grade bright and interesting." 

It is a pleasure to teach V . She is so quiet and polite 

and tries to get everything right." (Reply) " We are very proud 
of this." 

Effects on teaching. Probably the greatest value of these 
reports is the effect on the teacher's work. It insures in- 
dividual teaching and a constant study of individual needs. 
A collection of one teacher's reports with replies may be 
passed along to others or be made the basis of study in 
teachers' meeting. The discussion of them will suggest solu- 
tions of numerous difficulties in discipline and method. The 
effort to explain low grades so that pupils and parents will 
both understand what should be done to remedy them neces- 
sitates clear thinking by the teacher and gives the supervisor 
an admirable starting point for helpful oversight and crit- 
icism. Quite often the teachers have asked the supervisor, 
" Please watch So and So's reading and tell me what is 
the matter with him." This leads to very profitable dis- 
cussions and always to better teaching. These reports show 
up the qualities of individual teachers in marvelous fashion. 
Constant watchfulness is necessary to keep some teachers 
from dropping into stereotyped formulae in their comments 
— but even this tendency reveals the quality of their teaching. 

Such reports have served very effectively to introduce 
parents and teachers to each other and to bring about kindly 
visits instead of the formal visitations that have often pre- 
saged trouble. It is easy for the teacher to intimate on such 
a report that he would like to talk over Johnny's difficulty 
with his mother and thus prepare the way for a profitable 
visit of the parent to the school or of the teacher to the home. 
They have eliminated all surprise, friction, or charges of 
partiality in matters of promotion. In four years' use of such 
reports not one harsh or irritating reply was received from a 



1 66 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

parent, though there were very many touching responses 
which disclosed unsuspected home difficulties, brought unex- 
pected home cooperation, and gave the work those heart thrills 
that make a teacher's life rich and beautiful and afford the 
intangible rewards of teaching. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Find out from a number of parents just what they have 
inferred as to their children's standing from the perfunctory re- 
ports received. Compare carefully these several inferences with 
the relative progress of the children. 

2. Find out from careful inquiry just what the parents said or 
did to the child in response to the monthly reports received in a 
number of cases. How did these responses compare with what 
they should have been ? Would the response have been different 
if the information had been clearer? 

3. Can you find any indications of reports to parents having 
been intercepted or tampered with by the children ? What would 
you say of the spirit of the school work which would afford a 
temptation or reward for such deception ? 

4. Just what kind of information is it that parents want and 
should have regarding their children's progress at school ? What 
kind of marking or reporting will most clearly indicate this ? 

5. Formulate comments and helpful advice which you think 
most needed in connection with the marks on several actual reports. 

6. Formulate comments and suggestions which would tend to 
encourage a timid child; to steady an impulsive one; to arouse 
a capable one who is well up in his work but not working up 
to his own ability. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE DAILY SCHEDULE 

Traditional forms. Rigid mechanism has proved the 
bane of the schools in the matter of daily schedule as in 
everything else. It has been usual to divide the minutes 
in the school day by the number of classes to recite, and 
thus to determine the length of each period. Daily sched- 
ules commonly have the same length of periods for all 
subjects in the same grade and almost always for the same 
subject on different days. Yet if there is one thing per- 
fectly obvious it is that any class needs more of the teacher's 
time and attention on some lessons than on others even in 
the same subject. 

Principles of the schedule. We are confronted by the 
problem of conserving the economy, convenience, and uni- 
formity attained through a definite daily schedule, and at 
the same time avoiding its destructive rigidity. Before pre- 
senting a solution of the difficulty, let us have in mind the 
aims that should govern in making a schedule. 

I. Physiological Considerations 

i . The length of the recitation period, as of the school day, 
should increase with the age of the pupil. Beginners should 
not be confined to one sort of activity for more than eight 
or ten minutes, but high-school pupils may well concentrate 
on one thing for forty minutes or an hour. Three hours is 
sufficient for a school day in the first grade ; six is not too 
much for the high school. 

167 



168 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

2. The length of the period should decrease as the 
intensity of the mental application or the fineness of the 
muscular coordination required increases. Or, to put it 
another way, the intensity and accuracy will decrease as 
the length of the period increases. 

3. The length of the period should decrease with the 
monotony and increase with the variety of the activity re- 
quired in the lesson. Drills on multiplication should be in 
three-minute to five-minute periods preferably and at very 
high pressure, while a theme, for example, Hiawatha, may be 
developed through reading, story-telling, drawing, writing, 
language work, construction activities, etc. and occupy a 
whole day if desired. 

4. The "hard" studies should have the best part of the 
day. The best hour for work is that immediately after the 
morning exercises. It seems to be generally assumed, that 
arithmetic is the hard study, but the writer has interrogated 
a large number of teachers and students and has never 
yet found a group in which the majority had themselves 
found arithmetic the hardest subject either to teach or to 
study. There seem to be more who regard grammar and 
the language studies as hardest, but there is no approach 
to agreement. The same inquiries have indicated that 
while there is considerable difference in the aptitude of 
pupils, the largest factor in the difficulty of a study is 
not the subject but the methods of the particular teacher. 
Whatever subject is at the time causing special difficulty 
for the class or teacher may be temporarily given the best 
of the day. 

5. Similarly, subjects requiring little concentration should 
be reserved for the close of the day or for a period just 
before or just after the noon recess. These subjects also would 
be selected according to the methods or aims of the teacher. 
Commonly they are physiology, history, or literature. 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 169 

6. Fine muscular coordinations, as in writing and draw- 
ing, should never be required just after the physical strain 
and excitement of playtime. 

7. There should be alternations of intense and of easier 
tasks, of mental and of physical application, of study and 
of recreation. Calisthenics, singing, marching, or games 
which flush out the lungs and invigorate the circulation 
should interrupt sedentary work about once an hour in 
primary classes and almost as frequently among older chil- 
dren. This physical relaxation should be free and easy, 
not requiring finely coordinated drill nor intense attention. 
Severe, formal drills have a valuable function, but they are 
not recreation. 

Fatigue. In this connection it will be well to note the 
salient facts regarding fatigue as it concerns the school 
schedule. Actual physical fatigue is probably due to the 
presence in the blood of a toxin produced by the process 
of using up the tissues of the body. Normally this is re- 
moved by the various excretive organs. During periods of 
activity the toxin is produced more rapidly than it is removed, 
and the balance is established in periods of rest. An excess 
of the toxin in the system gives one the sensation of being 
tired. The tired feeling, however, is more often due to 
sluggishness of the vital processes than to overactivity. 
When a school child is physically fatigued, that is, suffers 
from the actual presence of the fatigue toxin, it is not 
likely to be due to overwork but to some such causes as 
these : pathological conditions such as anaemia, indigestion, 
nervous disorders, or perhaps tubercular affection ; adenoids, 
enlarged tonsils, etc. ; lack of sleep, unwholesome food, worry, 
fear, or other emotional disturbance. From such causes 
the school may be the innocent sufferer, but it is the guilty 
producer of much actual fatigue caused by eyestrain due 
to bad lighting ; by nerve-strain due to any uncomfortable 



iyo SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

or irritating conditions ; by worry or fear arising from 
methods of discipline ; by bad posture causing strain of the 
muscles of the back and neck and restricting the action of 
the vital organs ; by overstrain of any one set of muscles due 
to too long confinement at one task ; by lack of the exercise 
which stimulates all the organs to effective functioning ; or 
by bad ventilation, involving, as has been shown, lack of 
surface stimulation by air currents, lack of oxygen, excess 
of impurities, high temperature, and improper humidity. 
Tests have tended to show that fatigue is least at the 
beginning of the school day and increases toward the end, 
as would be expected ; also that it diminishes rapidly at 
each recess, despite the greater bodily exertion of playing, 
though not to the point at which the day was begun. 

Investigations bear out the conclusion that physical fatigue 
does not result from school work in any degree worthy of 
consideration. A healthy child under wholesome conditions 
can work at practically maximum efficiency at the close of 
the school day without the slightest injury. Every person 
in good health probably, has an abundance of reserve energy 
which is seldom drawn upon except in very strenuous 
physical exertion. Instead of being dangerous, it is a most 
valuable habit to work close to one's maximum capacity. 
Only thus is one's capacity increased. The majority of per- 
sons go through life doing all things far below their ability. 
More work means more energy, more vigor, better health, 
and greater joy of living, besides infinitely greater achieve- 
ment. We need not fear injurious fatigue among school 
children if we can be absolutely sure that physical conditions 
are wholesome. 

A very different matter is that other and more common 
sort of tiredness, mental ennui, tedium, weariness, or what- 
ever it may be called, which is often termed " mental 
fatigue." This is not at all dangerous except to habits of 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 171 

work. It has no demonstrable physical reality, but it is 
none the less a real interference with mental work. It is 
due to monotony, dissipated attention, lack of interest or 
motivation, a lack of a feeling that the thing to be done 
is worth doing. It can no more be banished by the 
teacher's fiat than the physical sort can. It is like the thirst 
which the child thinks he has when he has nothing else to 
think of and which is not lessened by his being told that 
he cannot drink or that he is not thirsty. This mental 
pseudo-fatigue seems to be a suggestion of a sensation so 
decided, and yet so vague and indefinite of cause and of 
symptom, that the wisest and most self-controlled cannot 
avoid getting "tired of" that in which they are not inter- 
ested. It is a psychological reality as truly as is the study 
or interest with which it so effectively interferes. The 
obvious and the only remedy is good teaching, with abun- 
dant motivation for the tasks assigned, frequent change 
of occupation, avoidance of interruptions and distractions 
during the time of concentration, and constant adaptation 
of work to the pupils' interests. 

The application of this interpolated discussion of fatigue 
to the making of the daily schedule is obvious and is covered 
by the various principles stated. 

II. Pedagogical Considerations 

1. The length of the period should not depend in any 
degree whatever upon the number of recitations which the 
teacher has to hear. Economy of time can be attained 
only by fitting the length of the period to the pedagogical 
needs of each lesson. Waste is sure to result from cutting 
periods too short for effective recitation or from fixing a 
length which may be too little one day and too much 
another. 



172 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

2. When a teacher has more than two grades or groups 
in all the common school branches, the day is too short to 
provide a distinct period for each lesson. 

3. Some subjects by their nature require more sustained 
thought and longer periods for recitation than do others. All 
subjects require longer periods for some recitations than 
for others ; for example, the development of a new topic in 
arithmetic or history demands the uninterrupted direction of 
the teacher for some time, while a recitation on the same 
subject next day requires perhaps half as much, and a drill 
on the essentials a few days later may demand still less. 

4. Some lessons demand the constant participation of 
the teacher, as an inductive development ; others may be 
conducted most profitably by any pupil, as a drill on funda- 
mentals or a dictation lesson ; in still others, as the working 
out of problems, the pupils are best left to themselves, and 
the presence of the teacher hurrying them to finish before 
the scheduled period is up is an actual hindrance. 

5. Monotony may be avoided, economy enhanced, and 
various social values very much increased by frequently 
changing the personnel of the recitation groups : for ex- 
ample, both groups of a grade should work together regu- 
larly in some subjects, and in others occasionally or at 
stated times ; all the groups in a room may be thrown 
together at times for special sorts of work, and this with 
or without notice ; or they may be pitted against each other 
variously for competitive drills. 

6. The necessity for frequently recurring reviews invites 
special combinations of classes. A group which passed 
over a certain important summary the previous year may 
be combined with one which passed it two months ago, 
and with one which has just reached it. The advanced 
group having no special preparation, and the others being 
relatively quite fresh on the topic, the contests are genuine 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 173 

and keen. The characteristically hard and important points 
should become traditional as " joint-contest lessons," and 
warning that a topic is likely to be so used will serve to 
insure any class making itself thorough and permanently 
sure on that topic. 

7. Provision must be made regularly for study periods 
and for individual instruction. These, like the recitations, 
require more time for some subjects and for some lessons 
than for others. 

8. Opportunities should be afforded for special groups 
of children to work together on distinct projects and special 
assignments. Some of the finest mental and social values 
are attained in this way. 

9. It is economical and thoroughly practical for a teacher 
to conduct two or more lessons of certain kinds at the 
same time : for example, spelling dictated to groups alter- 
nately ; one group may work problems at the board while 
another has oral drill or seat tasks ; one class may be self- 
conducted under the teacher's oversight while another 
is being directed at their seats. The self-conducted class 
is the climax of good teaching. 

10. Permanent groups that are too small are as objec- 
tionable as those that are too large. In small high schools 
particularly (just where economy in class time is most needed) 
instead of little groups of two to ten being kept constantly 
together, classes should be combined in science, history, 
literature, and other subjects in which a particular sequence 
is not imperative ; for example, physiography and chemistry 
may be offered one year, and biology and physics the next. 
Thus every pupil in his course will have a chance at each 
of the four sciences. By halving the number of classes the 
limited teaching corps has twice as much time for each. 
The same principle may be applied to several subjects in 
the grammar grades. 



174 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

1 1 . Time may similarly be economized by alternating 
lessons daily or by terms. Better far than having scrappy, 
fifteen-minute lessons in geography and history for all the 
year is to have thirty-minute lessons in one three times a week 
and in the other twice, or in one daily for half the year and 
in the other for the next half. 

12. The more rapid groups increase their capacity and 
self-reliance by constantly increasing self-direction in both 
study and recitation, thus requiring less and less of the 
time of the teacher. Weaker groups, on the other hand, 
require more instruction and study supervision. The pro- 
portions must necessarily vary from lesson to lesson. 

13. The whole plan of dividing the work of pupils strictly 
along the lines of subjects has been assailed time and again. 
While no very radical change is likely to come into general 
use, there should at least be opportunity to correlate and 
consolidate kindred subjects when desired. Nothing in the 
schedule should prevent the merging of history and civics, 
or history and geography, or the several language arts with 
each other or with any other subject. 

14. Habits of concentration and prompt dispatch of work 
are worth more than any mere uniformity. Work should 
be done for a reasonable time under high pressure. When 
completed it should be laid aside, regardless of schedule. 
Taboo all dawdling. 

15. Individual variations in ability demand that only 
the maximum time allowed for a task be specified in the 
schedule and that the more rapid workers be free to leave 
any task when completed. This can be provided for in 
part by elastic assignments, — that is, supplementary readings 
and problems for those who can get to them, — but rapidity 
and concentration are better encouraged by allowing the 
pupil to devote the time saved to some self-selected reading 
or project instead of requiring additional work in the same 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 175 

lesson. A fine opportunity for the exercise of teaching 
foresight and skill is afforded by the provision of well- 
motivated work for spare moments. 

16. The standard forty-minute period on which high- 
school credits are usually based has frequently been con- 
strued to mean that forty minutes daily must be spent by 
the pupil in reciting, whether he knows anything to recite 
or not. The term should be construed to mean not less 
than forty minutes daily of the most profitable work under 
the immediate and undivided oversight and direction of the 
teacher. Ten minutes' talk in class and forty minutes' intelli- 
gent study are worth incomparably more than forty minutes' 
talk based upon a superficial ten minutes of study. The 
forty-minute recitation period is about the poorest standard 
of uniformity imaginable. The equipment, the teacher, the 
additional study time required, and the ability of the 
individual pupil all make for the widest conceivable vari- 
ation in the educative results from a " Carnegie unit." 
Nevertheless, it is almost the only standard of measure 
possible for the service to which it is put, except the 
testing of the pupil himself. Any college-entrance official 
will welcome the substitution of more independent study and 
less of mere pumping and stuffing protracted to consume a 
forty-minute recitation period. 

17. It is very desirable that children should look forward 
to the opening and backward to the closing of the daily 
session as the most interesting and attractive moments of 
daily life. This goes far to make the child love school and 
to secure promptness in getting there each morning. The 
dull moments between will be forgotten if the opening 
exercises are such that everyone is anxious never to miss 
them and the last period is reserved for a story hour, for 
happy discussions, or whatever will make the pupils truly 
sorry when the bell rings for dismissal. 



176 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Reflex influences. Finally, a prime essential of the 
schedule, as of every other device of school organization, 
is a plan that will force the teachers who tend to fall into 
ruts and work by rule of thumb to keep everlastingly think- 
ing about the vital things of their work. Constant weighing 
of such considerations as we have enumerated above will 
go far toward making the teacher a directing overseer, a 
guide and counselor, a student of pupils' individual and group 
needs, rather than a mere routine lesson hearer. Monotony 
is banished and " dead time " eliminated if the teacher lives 
up to this opportunity. Pupils become conscious of the 
significance of what they are doing when time is adjusted 
to the thing to be done, instead of their being sentenced 
to hard labor for a fixed time, regardless of what . is to be 
done. The various considerations which we have detailed 
at length cannot be met by an ironclad daily time-table. 
On the other hand, we cannot recognize too clearly that a 
school without a very clear-cut schedule faithfully adhered 
to will soon be chaotic. 

The " elastic schedule." A simple elastic schedule, easily 
arranged, has been found to meet every consideration we 
have mentioned. It is made by dividing the school day into 
four to six large periods, not necessarily of the same length, 
each assigned to some subject or group of related subjects. 
All groups in the room work strictly within the prescribed 
field during the limits of a period. The period divisions 
must be violated only for most urgent considerations, with 
the exception that individual pupils may utilize spare time in 
any period for other tasks or for privileges approved by the 
teacher. The schedule may readily be modified from time 
to time as conditions seem to make this desirable. 

Illustrative program. Following is a schedule success- 
fully used by a teacher of two grades, the fifth and the 
sixth, each grade being divided into two shifting groups, A 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 



177 



and B. The groups varied from six to twelve pupils each. 
This specimen is selected because of the unusual difficulties 
which it meets. The program for an ordinary classroom 
with one grade of two or three groups is considerably 
simpler but follows the same plan of construction. 

The time within the period divisions may be redistributed 
according to daily needs. 



9-9.15 Opening Exercises. 
9. 15-10. 10 



Arithmetic 
(55 min., 



5 min. Assign problems to 6 A at seats ; assign prob- 
lems to 6 B at blackboard. 
35 min. Develop new topic with 5 A. 
1 5 min. 5 B recite on topic developed yesterday and 
studied during preceding 40 min. 

(Following day 6 A has new topic in 35 min., 5 A 
recites 1 5 min., 5 B works at board, 6 B at 
seats.) 
(On the next day, 6 B has new topic, 6 A recita- 
tion, 5 A at board, 5 B at seats, etc. in rotation 
as closely as the nature of the work permits.) 
(In this room it is convenient to use the fifth day 
in each week for combining groups in review 
and drill work.) 



10. 10-10.50 



f 10 min. Review 5th grade on essentials of yesterday's 

lesson and outline advanced assignment ; 6th grade 

Geography preparing. 

(40 min.) 30 min. Recitation or development in 6th grade ; 

5th grade studying. 

(Reverse on following day.) 

10. 50-1 1. 10 

Singing f Both grades togethei, alternated with drawing, arith- 

(20 min.)\ metic drill, or supervised study period . 

1 1. 10- 1 1.50 

History 

(40 min.) 

1 1. 50-1 2 

. , f Spelling and penmanship drills for those below stand- 
(iomm.)j ^ * 



Reverse geography schedule for day. 



178 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 



1 -1. 40 



Reading 
(40 min.) 



Recess 

Period divided about equally between the two grades, 
not divided into permanent sections. Time varies 
with selection but is balanced from day to day. 
Once or twice a week all combine in some selection 
of interest to all. 
1.40-2.35 

Language f Division of period and rotation as in arithmetic. 
(55 min.)\ Composition usually instead of blackboard work. 

2-35-3 

C Hygiene, 5th grade, Monday and Wednesday ; 6th grade 
(25 min.)-' study. Physiology, 6th grade, Tuesday and Thurs- 
[ day; 5th grade study. Current events, all, Friday. 

At the beginning of each period and in daily assignments 
the teacher indicates in a word the order of taking up the 
work. 

In geography, history, and reading the group distinctions 
are maintained by lateral extension mainly ; that is, group A 
is assigned additional readings on which they report to the 
entire class, group projects in map-making, dramatization, 
or school-fair contests. The regular groups in these subjects 
may be retained where a teacher has but one grade. In sing- 
ing, hygiene, etc. there are no group distinctions. Spelling 
and penmanship are conducted much of the time on an in- 
dividual basis, the proficient pupils being excused for other 
work if desired. Manual training for the boys and domestic 
science for the girls are done in other rooms and take the 
place of one period each week. Drilling, dictating, and the 
inspection of work done at the board or at the seats is fre- 
quently done by pupils — with increased educative values. 

Program for a small high school. Following is an adapta- 
tion of the same general plan to a small high school. The 
chief features of this schedule are the use of long periods 
and the combination of classes. One teacher can conduct 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 179 

two small classes in Latin for seventy minutes and give to 
each as much or more actual instruction than could be given 
to them separately in ninety minutes or more. The subjects 
taught in the longer periods are not expected to be studied 
outside of this time except by the few who are backward, 
and they have one or two vacant periods during the day for 
study. English for Grade II and Grade III is distinct as to 
textbook recitations, consolidated as to theme work, and alter- 
nated annually as to literature, by which means the abundant 
equivalent of two forty-minute recitations can be accom- 
plished in fifty minutes of the teacher's time. The science 
and history courses are consolidated outright, the courses 
offered being given in alternate years. On this schedule 
any pupil can take as many as six subjects in any year, but 
the majority should take but four and the more capable 
ones five, having one or two periods daily for study and 
a considerable range for election. As arranged, the course 
could be conducted by two teachers and half time of a 
third, though better instruction would be secured by having 
a more adequate force. Schedules for larger schools with 
ample teaching force require no special combinations. 

Grade- J II III IV 

9-9.15 15 min. Opening exercises twice a week out of first 

period. 

9-10.30 90 min. Math. Math. Latin Latin 

10.30-11.20 50 min. History English English Mod. Lang. 

1 1. 20-12 40 min. English Math. 

1-2. 10 40 min. "I . J Latin 5 da. J Science 

30 min. j \ Latin 3 da. ^ Laboratory 3 days 



J History 2 days 

2.10-2.50 40 miri. f" Lab. 2 da. ^ History 3 days Math. 

2 -5°-3-3° 40 min. ^ Science Mod. Lang. English 

Unlimited adaptations and variations of the principles of 
this schedule are possible. 



180 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

A Montessori program. An illustration of the modern 
trend away from rigid divisions of the day into short periods 
is shown in the daily program under which Dr. Maria 
Montessori conducts her celebrated Casa de Bambini at 
Rome. This is the daily schedule as given in the bulletin of 
the national Bureau of Education, by Anna Tolman Smith : 



Opening at g o'clock. Closing at 4 o'clock 

9-10. Entrance. Greeting. Inspection as to personal cleanliness. Ex- 
ercises of practical life; helping one another to take off and put 
on the aprons. Going over the room to see that everything is 
dusted and in order. Language : conversation period ; children 
give an account of the events of the day before. Religious 
exercises. 

10-11. Intellectual exercises. Objective lessons interrupted by short 
rest periods. Nomenclature ; sense exercises. 

n-11.30. Simple gymnastics: Ordinary movements done gracefully; 
normal position of the body, walking, marching in line, salutations, 
movements for attention, placing of objects gracefully. 

1 1. 30-1 2. Luncheon. Short prayer. 

1 2- 1. Free games. 

1-2. Directed games, if possible in the open air. During this period 
the older children in turn go through the exercises of practical life, 
cleaning the room, dusting, putting the material in order. General 
inspection for cleanliness. Conversation. 

2-3. Manual work. Clay modeling, design, etc. 

3-4. Collective gymnastics and songs, if possible in the open air. 
Exercises to develop forethought ; visiting and caring for the 
plants and animals. 

The Gary program. Perhaps the most significant radical 
improvement in the matter of daily programs is that evolved 
by Superintendent Wirt at Gary, Indiana, and known as the 
Gary Plan. This plan has attracted attention primarily as a 
means of getting larger service from the school plant by 
means of having several groups of children use the same 
rooms and equipment in rotation. The importance of such 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 



181 



a plan in the crowded schools of the larger cities resulted 
in Mr. Wirt being invited to inaugurate his plan in some of 
the New York City schools. It has also been approved for 
nation-wide adoption in Japan. Under the Gary Plan the 
work of the school is divided into four departments : namely, 
Department I, consisting of language, mathematics, history, 
and geography ; Department 2, science, manual training, 
drawing, and music ; Department 3, auditorium exercises 
for mass instruction ; Department 4, play, physical training, 
and application by means of free activities. The children of 
the school, likewise, are divided into four sections or groups : 
one half of all the children in Grade I to Grade IV constitute 
group A ; one half of Grade V to Grade VIII constitute 
group B ; the other halves of these grades respectively con- 
stitute groups C and D. The school day is long, eight and 
one-fourth hours for most of the pupils, and is divided into 
eight one-hour periods. The groups pass in succession 
through the several departments of work about as follows : 





Department i 


Department 2 


Department 3 


Department 4 














Group 


Group 


Group 


Group 


8.15- 9.15 


A 


B 


— 


C, D 


9.15-10.15 


B 


A 


c 


D 


10.15-11.15 


C 


D 


A 


B 


II. 15-12. 15 


D 


C 


— 


— 


12.15- i-3° 


A 


B 


— 


— 


1.30- 2.30 


B 


A 


D 


C 


2 -3°- 3-3° 


C 


D 


B 


A 


3.30- 4.30 


D 


C 


— 


A, B 



Roughly speaking, each classroom can accommodate four 
distinct groups of children each day, thus multiplying the 
capacity of the school by four, provided that separate equip- 
ment is supplied for each of the four departments of work. 
Practically there are many limitations on this quadruple 



182 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

service of the buildings, but there are also many interest- 
ing and advantageous variations on the plan as it has been 
briefly and incompletely outlined above. 

PROBLEMS 

1. What is the practical difference between being tired by a 
task and being tired of it ? 

2. Do children show any less capacity for mental work toward 
the close of a school day, provided they are equally interested and 
have sufficient exercise and air ? 

3. Criticize on both hygienic and pedagogical grounds several 
daily schedules in actual use. 

4. Arrange better schedules to meet the same conditions. 

5 . Arrange a schedule according to the principles in this chapter 
for a three-year high school with two teachers. 

6. Study the Gary Plan with a view to determining to what 
extent the idea of rotation could be adapted to relieve the crowded 
condition which might prevail in any department of a school ; for 
example, the manual-training shops or domestic-science kitchens. 

READINGS 

Bagley. Classroom Management, chap. iv. 

Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chap. v. 

Colgrove. The Teacher and the School, chap. xii. 

Culter and Stone. The Rural School and its Management, chap. viii. 

Dinsmore. Teaching a District School, chap. ii. 

Dutton. School Management, chap. x. 

Jones. Teaching Children to Study, chaps, v-viii. 

Lincoln. Everyday Pedagogy, chap. v. 

Page. Theory and Practice of Teaching, chap. xi. 

Salisbury. School Management, chap. x. 

Seeley. A New School Management, chap. v. 

White. School Management, p. 86. 

United States Bureau of Education Bulletins 

Bulletin No. 18, 1914, " The Public School System of Gary, Indiana " 
(Burris). 

Bulletin No. 12, 191 2, " The Montessori System of Education "(Smith). 



THE DAILY SCHEDULE 183 

On Fatigue 

Colvin. The Learning Process, pp. 270 ff. 

HECK. A Study of Mental Fatigue. 

KlRKPATRICK. Fundamentals of Child Study, chap. xvii. 

OFFNER. Mental Fatigue. 

O'SheA. Dynamic Factors in Education, chap, xviii. 

PUTNAM. School Janitors, Mothers, and Health, chap. i. 

Pyle. Outlines of Educational Psychology, chap. xv. 

Starch. Experiments in Educational Psychology, chap. xiii. 

THORNDIKE. Educational Psychology (Briefer Course), chaps, xix, xx. 



CHAPTER XVII 
HOME STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 

The indictment of home study. The schools gradually 
drifted into the custom of expecting their pupils to do con- 
siderable studying out of school hours. Of late there has 
been much agitation in medical and educational circles, as 
well as in the popular press, on the inadvisability of such 
requirements. Objections raised to home-study requirements 
may be summed up thus : 

i. There is danger to the health of a pupil who works 
through the school hours and in the evenings too. Six hours 
of hard, mental work is all that should be required of a 
growing child. Study which interferes with abundant sleep 
causes incomparably more harm than benefit to school 
progress. 

2. Long hours are conducive to bad habits of dawdling 
over work both at school and at home. Study periods at 
school become occasions for mischief and those at home 
for trifling. The maximum efficiency and the best mental 
habits result from a few hours of concentrated attention 
and high-pressure work, with complete relief at other times. 

3. The amount of time devoted to lessons at home can- 
not be controlled. Some children need much more than 
others to accomplish the same task. Where departmental 
teaching prevails, as in high schools, ordinarily each teacher 
makes his assignments without reference to others. One 
night the child will have very little to da, while each of 
four or five teachers may require an extra task the next 
night. Inquiry among the teachers of a certain group of 

184 



HOME STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 185 

high-school pupils disclosed the fact that collectively they 
were expecting from six to eight hours of study from these 
children practically every night. Each of these teachers 
had indignantly denied that he was overtaxing them in his 
department and was astonished at the combined results. 

4. Study in some homes is done with bad lights and 
such discomforts and distractions as to be more harmful 
than profitable. In the better homes there is often very 
much of "helping" of the misguided sort, which is worse 
than none at all, upsetting plans for training in study and 
deceiving the teacher utterly as to the child's effort and 
achievement. 

5. "Lessons to get" is made an excuse, valid or not, 
for evasion of home duties, church attendance, and other 
responsibilities which are, up to a certain point, no less 
educative than school duties. 

6. Home life, which Americans regard as the basis of 
that which is best and purest in our civilization, is largely 
destroyed. From the time the child is old enough to sit 
up at night the long winter evenings mean to him not the 
beautiful ideals of hearth-side and home circle, but the 
hardest and most uninspiring tasks that he will probably 
ever know. Might not some of our social problems be 
very much alleviated if the demands of the school did not 
make impossible the fine influences of uplifting memories 
and ideals of sweet home life ? 

7. By this relentless grind, day and night, childhood is 
made abnormally severe, and no opportunity is given for 
training for the intelligent enjoyment of culture and leisure. 

Its regulation. In recognition of these evils, home study 
has been quite generally abandoned for primary children, 
and the amount required for the intermediate grades is 
reduced. In not a few instances the requirement of home 
study for any grades has been prohibited. Elsewhere 



1.86 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

graded schemes of requirements have been made. For 
example, in one place a half hour was prescribed for the 
third and fourth grades, an hour for the fifth and sixth, 
an hour and a half for the seventh and eighth, and two 
hours for higher grades. Since one child can keep up 
without any home study, while another cannot with twice 
the designated time, the fallacy of any such prescription 
must be obvious. Studying by the clock is poor business 
anyway, as is any pretense of study when nature demands 
that the child should be in bed. 

Study programs. A plan which evidently eliminates 
some of these evils is the study program. As used in 
Oakland City, Indiana, each child is required to make out 
a complete schedule of all time which he is to devote to 
school tasks, including the periods when he is not reciting 
at school and the study time at home. This plan is re- 
ported to have established regular hours and regular habits 
of study and to have " practically eliminated the problem 
of discipline." The pupils themselves, after two and a half 
years of working by a study program, reported as follows : 
" When following a study program one is never in doubt 
about what to do next " ; "I can do more and better work 
than if I studied in a haphazard fashion " ; "It keeps 
me from spending too much time on favorite subjects"; 
" Keeps me from changing tasks when I begin to tire of 
what I am doing"; "I not only have better lessons but 
also have more time for leisure " ; "It proved so beneficial 
to me in the preparation of my lessons that I now follow 
a regular program for all my work " ; "I had the habit of 
always putting off my work until I felt just right for study, 
and as a result made very poor grades, but since I have 
adopted a regular study program my interest in my work 
has greatly increased and I am no longer ashamed of 
my grades." 



HOME STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 187 

In carrying out this plan each pupil is supplied with a 
card containing on one side blanks for his schedule to be 
filled out by each child to suit his own needs. It is made 
out for the term and a copy filed with the principal. Pre- 
sumably it may be adjusted from time to time as the pupil 
finds readjustment advantageous. On the reverse of this 
card is printed the following: 

DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 

1. Follow your program regularly. 

2. If possible, study your lesson immediately after the assign- 
ment is made. 

3. Take brief notes and afterward study by outline. 

4. Use dictionary and reference books for points not clearly 
comprehended. 

5. Concentrate the mind so that outside interests will not fre- 
quently disturb your study. 

6. Do not try to commit exact words until you understand their 
content. 

7. Connect important facts of the new lesson with facts pre- 
viously learned. 

8. Make comparisons and contrasts when possible. 

9. The extra effort spent on preparation pays the greatest 
intellectual dividend. 

10. Carefully review and think over the previous lesson before 
beginning the next. 1 

Double periods. Another plan was developed at Newark. 
The school day has five main periods of sixty minutes each. 

The first portion of the period is spent in recitation. The sec- 
ond portion is employed in conference or independent study with 
the teacher, the children being in the atmosphere of the subject. 
It gives the instructor a chance to know that each child is study- 
ing his special subject, as well as to observe and direct the methods 

1 See Reavis, School Review, June, 191 1. 



1 88 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

of study. The teacher who knows the subject, working with the 
children, can give them some of the trade secrets for handling the 
same. He shows the pupils how to study and how to form correct 
study habits. This well-directed functioning power leads the pupils 
to confidence in self and to personal initiative. . . . Concentration 
and intensive effort in study, influenced by the aura of the inspired 
teacher, is the outcome of the system. 

After-school periods. In the hour following the regular 
school session the teachers are at their desks to confer 
with the pupils who may desire instruction or wish to study 
after school. By this plan it is claimed that practically all the 
dangers inherent in home study have been eliminated. Home 
study itself is minimized or eliminated for the bright pupils. 

Segregated study plan. The elastic schedule already dis- 
cussed includes the essentials of these plans as regards the 
work in school and may be combined with the out-of-school 
features to advantage. In connection with it there has been 
developed a policy of confining the study of the "form" sub- 
jects requiring the most intensive study to school hours and 
segregating for home work the less formal study of cultural 
subjects. This plan seems to meet every objection offered 
to home study and at the same time utilizes the evening 
hours most profitably for the student's progress. The plan 
is as follows, subject to wide variations. 

" Form" subjects. Time is provided in the daily schedule 
for the study required in the formal subjects (mathematics, 
spelling, grammar, Latin, etc.), as far as possible under the 
direct supervision of the teacher. This is done either by 
means of the long periods in which study and recitation 
are combined or by means of special study periods. 

Individual needs. In the high school, where shifting 
groups do not provide for varying abilities, the slower pupils 
can secure additional time in school for study by taking fewer 
subjects and the more rapid pupil can economize time by 



HOMP: STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 189 

taking additional courses. The daily assignment is what the 
average of the class can accomplish in the time allotted, 
and, as the study is done under the eye of the teacher, he 
soon knows how to gauge his requirements to the ability of 
the class. A deficient pupil may use out-of-school time 
to remedy some individual need which has been pointed 
out to him, or an ambitious one may carry extra courses or 
get ahead of his class by home study in the formal sub- 
jects, but the regular policy for all is to regard the hard, 
grinding subjects which require intensive application as school 
work, to be finished during school hours and put aside with 
all worry about them at the end of the school day. 

Concentration during work hours. Emphasis is placed 
on the value of hard concentration during the few hours at 
school, and there is no pretense of it at other times. There 
must be no evening study required at the expense of com- 
plete relaxation and untroubled sleep. The one unfailing 
requirement of the child at home is to keep himself thor- 
oughly fit for a hard day's work at school. He can get all 
the hard work there that is good for him. 

Knowledge and culture study. The study which is segre- 
gated for the evening hours at home is that kind which is 
introduced into the curriculum primarily for training in the 
fine art of the cultured use of leisure hours. The universal 
tendency under ordinary conditions has been just the oppo- 
site of that to be desired. The formal studies, which require 
concentration, have been the ones which the children have 
taken home for night study ; while the cultural studies, — lit- 
erature, history, and geographical readings, — because they 
were easier, have been left for the odd times between classes 
at school. 

Latitude in home-study requirements. Assignments for 
evening work are made in as broad a manner as practicable, 
allowing considerable latitude as to the time at which it is 



190 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

to be done. This is to allow freely for attendance upon 
church meetings, lectures, concerts, and the more wholesome 
social gatherings and other entertainments suited to the age 
of the children. Children cannot learn to select the right 
sort of amusements in preference to the wrong sort by being 
kept away from them all. Definite effort should be made 
to interest them in the best forms of entertainments, and 
lessons should be so correlated that pupils will be brought 
into sympathetic appreciation of the finer opportunities for 
recreation. This may well contribute more to good living 
than a considerable amount of class work. 

Training for leisure. The actual study to be done at home 
should be planned to guide the children into an abiding in- 
terest in the reading of such history, travels, and literature 
as contribute to lives of refinement and culture. It should be 
correlated in an interesting manner with the news of the day 
and should lead to the reading of the better grade of daily 
papers and magazines at home. It should make intelligible 
and attractive the better class of music, now accessible in 
almost any home by means of the graphophone. It should 
direct the pupil's steps to the galleries and museums, where 
things worth while are to be seen. Above all, it should lead 
into the enjoyment of the best literature — not necessarily 
the best for the teacher of literature but the best for the 
child. This direction can be given to the home study by 
dealing with these subjects of culture and general knowledge 
in a more vital and less formal manner. 

Contributions to home life. For countless thousands the 
whole home life would be beautifully enriched if the teachers 
in selecting the study for evening occupation would find 
those things into which the whole family might enter. The 
family circle and its interests might well be built about the 
interesting lessons of the school. In the more intensive 
studies home help is commonly a hindrance to the child and 



HOME STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 191 

a burden to the parents. In culture subjects it cannot but 
prove a blessing to both. Stories of the people who lived in 
that mysterious long ago, geographical readings of the won- 
derful lands and strange peoples we have never seen ; pictures 
and descriptions of those distant places where the news of 
to-day actually took place ; the stories, the poems, the master- 
pieces of every kind that the world has enjoyed and admired; 
why should not these be the history and geography and the lit- 
erature lessons that we assign for home study ? These studies 
are intended to adorn life and to elevate our interests ; why 
defeat their purpose by reducing them to a few minutes of 
hasty cramming in of facts and drilling in of outlines ? We 
may well keep the organizing of them at a minimum and 
the enriching of them at a maximum. We may introduce 
as much of formal instruction and system as need be in the 
recitation work or look to other subjects for disciplinary 
values, but the surest way to secure future -enjoyment of 
refinement, leisure, and higher standards of intelligent home 
life is to make them enjoyable now. 

School will much more wholesomely prepare for and ap- 
proximate real life when a faithful day's work earns a free 
evening ; when in business hours we make our living, but 
after hours we do our living ; when the day's work keeps 
us apace with our fellows, but wise and self-directed use of 
spare hours is the means by which we outstrip them ; when 
the routine things of life are locked up in our desks at the 
close of the day and we take home with us those that we 
may well share and enjoy with the family ; when for our 
evenings we can enjoy together the best things of music, 
literature, art, and society. 

The argument that home assignments of a definite and 
compulsory sort serve a good purpose in keeping the child 
off the street and out of bad company is not only a slander 
on American homes but is fallacious from the fact that 



192 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

months of dead evening grind in the hardest of study 
through the school term is the surest means of driving the 
child from the home during the evenings of vacation and 
holidays. Training for home life must begin at the school 
which has done so much to destroy it. 

Happily the introduction of these better plans of home 
work and policies of study do not need to wait for some 
general "adoption of a system." In fact, a system adopted 
would be foredoomed to failure. But every teacher can enter 
more or less completely into the spirit of the situation and 
thus work out his solution of the home-study problem step 
by step without waiting for formal action. 



PROBLEMS 

1. What instances can you cite of injury to health from home 
study ? 

2. Find from the several teachers of any high-school class how 
much time they expect the pupils to spend on their work out of 
school. Find from as many as possible of the pupils or their 
parents how much time they actually do spend on it. 

3. From observation and inquiry try to determine about what 
per cent efficient is the evening study of several children, especially 
after they begin to nod. 

4. Prepare a practical study program for yourself or some 
student. 

5. Under the plan of segregating the formal subjects for study 
wholly in schools, prepare instructions to children indicating what 
work is to be done in school and what at home. 

6. Outline the assignments in literature or history for a month 
with the aim of making the home study as vital as possible for 
the child. 

7 . Plan suggestions as to how an uncultured family could share 
in the benefits of the child's work at school. How could you 
present these suggestions in class tactfully ? 



HOMK STUDY AND STUDY PROGRAMS 193 

8. Analyze the usual effect of " home help " in arithmetic or 
Latin lessons. What are the objections to it ? Do the same objec- 
tions prevail as to help in studying a piece of literature or an 
historical description? What are the effects of parents working 
with the children on such assignments ? 

READINGS 

CHANCELLOR. Class Teaching and Management, pp. 50, 71. 

II ILL-QUEST.. Supervised Study, chaps, i, ii, v, vi. 

HUGHES (Wiener). The Modern High School, chap. xi. 

KENDALL and Mirk :k. How to Teach the Fundamental Subjects, 

pp. 135, 200, 227. 
McMURRY. How to Study and Teaching How to Study, p. 304. 
Parker. Methods of Teaching in High Schools, chap. xvi. 
Seelev. New School Management, pp.46, 162. 
White. Art of Teaching, p. 163. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

GETTING STARTED RIGHT 

Readiness of the teacher. It is to be expected that 
young teachers will be in some confusion as to what to do 
first in beginning the work of the school, but the delays 
in getting down to effective work in very many schools 
indicate that older teachers generally would profit by giving 
considerable thought to the problems of the first day. Cer- 
tainly one's personal affairs should be settled and well off 
the mind before the opening day ; such things as boarding 
arrangements, unpacking, and " getting straightened out." 
Several days devoted largely to making acquaintances and 
getting to feel at home is more than worth while when 
going among strangers to teach. 

Readiness of the plant. Whatever the size of the school, 
whether a one-room country school or a unit of a big city 
system ; whatever the amount of janitor service and super- 
vision of buildings provided, the principal in charge must 
make himself thoroughly familiar with every part of his 
school plant in advance of the opening day, and long 
enough in advance to see that all necessary repairs and 
attention are provided in time. What the janitor or trustee 
was supposed to have attended to does not help the dis- 
order of the opening days. Necessary repairs, equipment, 
and cleaning must all be disposed of before the children 
begin to demand attention. The principal can afford to 
trust no one but himself in knowing that things are in 
shipshape for a successful start. Likewise each teacher 
should give personal and very careful attention to every 

194 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 195 

detail of the preparation and equipment of his own class- 
room. The first days are to be the busiest and most critical 
of the whole year, and the wise teacher will not permit 
himself to be placed at any disadvantage for the lack of 
foresight in the matter of having things ready. There 
must be no getting ready for business after business is 
supposed to have begun. Where janitor service is not 
adequate it is an admirable plan to make special friends of 
a few of the leading spirits among the pupils and go with 
them to make the necessary preparations. 

Class rolls. All teachers should secure some days in 
advance the complete lists of the pupils who have been 
promoted to or detained in the grades they are to teach. 
New pupils, as far as practicable, should also be assigned 
to their grades, permanently or provisionally, before the 
first morning of the term. Daily schedules, signals to be 
used, routine of class movements, disposition of wraps, etc. 
should all be planned as completely as possible and thor- 
oughly understood by every teacher. 

Course of study interpreted. Whatever the form of the 
course of study provided, before the first day the teacher 
should have taken time to interpret it broadly into large 
central aims and the general abilities assumed and sought 
for in each grade. A characteristic of poor teaching is that 
real aims are lost sight of in the crowded trivialities of the 
daily assignments. By getting the large aims clarified in 
advance and the general organization of the texts thoroughly 
in mind, one's work comes to have much more significance, 
and methods less of stupid inflexibility. After the burden 
of the daily grind begins to press, it is hard to think in 
terms of large aims or to distinguish from the incidental 
that which is essential. 

First impressions. First impressions are too important 
among the educative factors in the children to be neglected. 



196 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The first impression that is most valuable for teaching or 
for discipline is that the school is a place for business. 
However eloquent the new teacher may be, it is not prob- 
able that an inaugural address will contribute much to the 
success of his work. His ideas and his phrases may be 
perfect, but what he says will have much less effect on 
the pupils' attitudes than what they do. It is better for 
the children to feel that they are being put through their 
paces than that the teacher is. The formal promulgation 
of rules and policies serves as a challenge to the chil- 
dren to try out the strength of them. Telling about it is a 
futile way to create the impression that the school is to be 
a hive of busy activity. The more effective way is to have 
everybody busy, starting on the jump when the first assem- 
bly bell rings and keeping it up until the regular time 
for dismissal. Authorities have a right to question the 
management of a school which requires three to ten days 
to get down to regular work. During these first days pupils 
adopt their standards of application and industry for the 
year. Some of the frenzied hurrying to get over the ground 
in the last week before final examinations should be 
avoided by a systematically busy first week. But a quick 
get-away requires a thorough getting ready. 

Work of the first days. The first days should be par- 
ticularly important days of actual teaching. Lack of books, 
instead of being a valid excuse for early dismissal and get- 
ting nothing done, is a distinct teaching advantage. It is 
not book assignments that are needed for the first week or 
two, but a thorough reviewing and fixing afresh of the essen- 
tial fundamentals already learned and assumed as a basis 
of the new year's work. Instead of starting off with new 
work and excusing one's failures all through the year by 
reflections on the poor preparation which the class received 
under the former teacher, one should spend a few days in 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 197 

testing out the abilities expected of the pupils, refreshing the 
class on that which has become stale during vacation, discov- 
ering individual deficiencies, and directing the necessary drill 
to remedy them. Nor are the books of the last year neces- 
sary, for that which is important is not a reciting of newly 
studied lessons but a demonstrating of abilities which can 
be used in connections different from those in which they 
were learned. Work of this sort has a distinct value in 
the fact that it focuses attention of teachers and pupils 
alike upon essentials ; it should make perfectly clear what 
sort of things are indispensable and thus serve as a guide 
to more effective subsequent study. It should help them 
to realize that the effort worth while is not getting over 
specified ground but establishing permanent abilities to do 
definite things. 

Not too many changes. However radical the changes 
that are to be made in the routine and management of 
the school, it is not well to present too many reforms to 
the pupils on the first clay. Let established habits furnish 
a working basis to start on and introduce changes gradually. 
Let each change have the attention of the children and 
become fixed as a reality and habit before others are too 
much talked of. Distinctly bad habits, to be sure, con- 
sciously low standards of behavior or of cleanliness, and 
the like, should not be allowed to reestablish themselves 
after the break-up incident to vacation. Begin with the best 
that the pupils know, but do not dissipate attention with more 
reforms than they can appreciate or live up to. 

Study habits. It is a safe assumption that some of the 
very worst habits of the class are habits of study. Make 
the first few days contribute to better ideals and stand- 
ards of work. Impress upon pupils the value of thorough 
methods of study, not as arbitrary tasks imposed but as 
labor lighteners, as means of getting done most easily the 



198 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

things that will have to be done some way. The reviews 
of these first days afford the best object lessons for just 
such teaching of study methods. Keep before them the 
thought that quality rather than sheer quantity of study 
gets results. 

A clean slate for a bad record. A very large contributing 
factor in the conduct of the chronically troublesome child 
is the notion he gets that the teacher has " got it in for 
him " ; that once a teacher is " down on him," whoever may 
have been at fault originally, he is suspected of all the mis- 
doings that occur and never has a " square deal " again. 
It is the tragic fate of the criminal in miniature. The boy 
must feel that so far as the teacher is concerned he has an 
entirely new chance each term. It is even best for a new 
teacher to take charge of a class without knowledge of past 
conduct records, so that preformed suspicions will not tinge 
the most impartial treatment with any insincerity. The child 
" with a record " is always suspicious of being suspected. 
However, if a trouble-maker is known and knows that he 
is known, it is well to win him over at the start. Fore- 
stall mischief by making him your friend. Call on him for 
genuine assistance of any sort that a child is glad to render 
in the days before and just after the opening of school. 
Trust him with important commissions and responsibilities 
and keep him busy working for you. Nothing so calls forth 
the best impulses of boy nature as confidence and friend- 
ship. One who habitually hates any embodiment of authority 
will nevertheless stand by a friend. 

Getting in tune for the day. Much of the success of each 
day, as well as of the year, depends on a good start. The 
refreshing night's sleep, the invigorating bath and the nour- 
ishing breakfast, all the wholesome routine of the resting 
hours and the rising hour, contribute largely to the day's 
work, and the wise teacher will not neglect these factors in 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 199 

his pupils' progress. Control of them is through inspiring 
instruction in hygiene, friendly counsel, and cooperation with 
the home. But given the right physical start, it is no less 
important that the intellectual and emotional side of the pupil 
should be " feeling fit." Great speeches are made, great 
poems are written, great battles are won, and most other 
great things are done in times of enthusiasm and inspiration. 
But the inspiration is not often an accident ; it is designed, 
planned, and worked up to. So the good day's work needs 
an emotional stimulus, but the way to get that stimulus is 
to go after it. Not merely a stimulus but a neural harmony, 
a mental attuning, a spiritual poise, is needed. Some of the 
class are sure to bring something of fretfulness, discourage- 
ment, or other inner discord from home — and emotions are 
contagious. Morning exercises should seek to smooth away 
the friction, to afford a balm for the irritation, and to set dis- 
cordant nerves in tune. " Music hath charms to soothe the 
savage breast " in school as well as elsewhere. 

A moment of reverence. A moment of genuine reverence 
helps decidedly to give one a renewed sense of values ; it 
shows up mean thoughts in their true aspect ; it cleanses 
ideas, uplifts ideals, and helps to re-aline one's aims and 
efforts with purposes that endure. He is fit for a bigger 
and a better day's work who for even one instant has bowed 
his head at the beginning of the day and sincerely said : 
" Father, help me to live this day aright." A habit of be- 
ginning the day in such manner has value beyond com- 
putation in fitting a child for useful citizenship, for right 
living and effective work. 

Devotional (?) exercises. The customary "devotional ex- 
ercises " at the beginning of the school day have aimed for 
such results but, like much other formal worship, the means 
have defeated the end, They have been anything but exer- 
cises in devotion. Long Scripture readings and perfunctory 



200 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

saying of prayers or droning of hymns while the children 
are making faces, passing notes, or doing anything but 
praying and praising — this hideous mockery has been the 
daily inspiration of some school openings. Such sacrilegious 
performances violate the fundamentals of both religion and 
pedagogy. It is not surprising that protests against the use 
of Scripture in school have been raised by atheists, Jews, 
Catholics, and zealous Protestants alike, — some because 
they regard the Scripture as unworthy to be taught in the 
school and some because they regard the schools unworthy 
to teach Scripture. 

State laws vary in their attitude toward religious teaching 
in school, from that of some of the eastern states where the 
reading of a portion of the Bible and repetition of the 
Lord's Prayer is required daily under penalty of removal, to 
that of some of the western states where the conducting of 
any religious exercise in school is prohibited under penalty 
of the revocation of the teacher's license. Much heat of 
intolerance has been generated by this question in various 
states, and it is a familiar case in the records of civil and 
educational courts. Despite local variations, the trend of 
decisions and of legislation is toward a quite definite Amer- 
ican ideal, which may be expressed about as follows : There 
shall be no sectarian instruction of any sort given in any 
school maintained by public funds. There shall be no 
religious test or examination required of any teacher, but 
no teacher shall be allowed to wear any distinctive sectarian 
garb or engage in any distinctive sectarian exercise while at 
school. The Bible may be read and the Lord's Prayer re- 
peated, but no pupil whose parents object may be required 
to participate in or attend such exercises. The Bible may 
be used as literature or as historical material, provided no 
pupil shall be required to study it in opposition to the 
declared wishes of his parents. 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 201 

Their aim. This is a happy conclusion and should in 
general result in making the public schools more and not 
less religious. That teacher whose religious services must 
be either of the offensive sectarian sort or of the mechanical 
perfunctory sort would be much more reverential in omitting 
them entirely. It is not the responsibility of the public 
school to supply the child's religion any more than to buy 
his shoes, but it is the highest pi ivilege vouchsafed to any 
human being to lead little children into reverence and 
spiritual aspiration. 

Bible as literature. So far as we defend the use of the 
Bible as literature, let us teach it in the literature class as 
literature. If as history, teach it in connection with history. 
These considerations have nothing to do with its use in 
devotional exercises. If used there, it has but one sort 
of justification — that it contributes to reverence, spiritual 
uplift, ennobling of life. 

Routine or reverence? Whatever else in the school may 
be routine, devotional exercises must not. Routine saves 
time, saves energy, insures uniformity, but eliminates emo- 
tion and conscious attention. Routine and inspiration are 
psychologically opposite. Morning exercises, so far as they 
may be religious, should keep attention and the appropriate 
emotion at a maximum. Emotional states are the accompani- 
ment not so much of instruction as of action. For reverence 
there should be a simple act of bowing the head or kneeling 
accompanying a devotional thought ; a sentence prayer for 
guidance, for higher aims or for kinder feelings ; a formu- 
lation of childhood's purest aims. A single thought, but 
that made vital, is better than more. Bible reading may 
well be of the same sort — one fine thought expressive of a 
child's spiritual aspiration, a proverb of admonition, a glimpse 
of the inner life which has made Scriptural characters im- 
mortal, or one sweet strain from the Psalms. Even bigoted 



202 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

parents raise no objection to such devotions nor do they care 
as to the creed of the teacher who so teaches reverence. It 
is not necessary that these exercises be conducted every 
morning or at any regular time. What is necessary is that 
when they are conducted they be participated in reverently 
by those present. 

Singing. Music is a fundamental expression of human 
emotion. Singing by a school in unison, like marching or 
other concerted rhythmic activity, arouses an esprit de corps 
which means much for cooperation and easy discipline. The 
primary essential is not so much that the tune be accurately 
sung but that everyone take part. Artistic and harmonious 
music has a large place in the better life, but when it comes 
to getting a school in tune for the day's work, the joyously 
abundant rhythmic activity of all in unison is the thing that 
counts. Being able to sing and to lead singing should be as 
much a part of the teacher's work as being able to read and 
to lead reading. One who "cannot sing" should, by his. 
example, make use of the fact to encourage the pupil who 
thinks that he also cannot sing to join in freely with the 
others in all concert singing. The adolescent boy has great 
need to get control of his rapidly changing emotions and 
physical capacities and to subject them to social standards 
and usages. His changing voice is among these yet uncon- 
trolled forces, and the school song is among the finest means 
of socializing both voice and boy. The singing, of course, 
must not be forced upon him, but it is a great thing to in- 
spire such a boy with the spirit of song. School singing, 
expressive of school spirit and child life, is a very different 
thing from singing lessons and should not be dependent upon 
instruction. The former is related to the latter much as 
animated conversation is to a grammar lesson. Patriotism, 
loyalty, school pride, and every social quality appropriate to 
childhood can be contributed to by means of school singing. 





SOCIALIZED MORNING EXERCISES 

Two scenes from " lirotherhood." a play written and staged by the eighth 
grade for the Francis W. Parker School 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 203 

Educative and socializing exercises. Devotional and 
musical exercises should be very brief, particularly if fre- 
quent, but the range of exercises appropriate for the open- 
ing of the day is practically infinite. " School hour " may be 
conducted occasionally for the general discussion of any 
questions for the good of the whole school, as to its 
internal organization, standards of conduct, physical envi- 
ronment, or interscholastic contests. Current news and 
movements of local importance may be effectively pre- 
sented ; public issues which press and people are discussing, 
anniversary celebrations of local and general importance, 
worthy causes for which unselfish propagandists are seeking 
to develop a public consciousness, or the frequent relief 
funds for which public contributions are asked. It may 
not be desirable that the school should directly collect 
funds for many of these causes, but the nature of the 
cause or the need may well be made clear to the children. 
Any of the minor "special day" celebrations may be 
condensed into morning exercises. Special music, talks 
of an interesting sort by teachers or visitors, may occa- 
sionally occupy the morning-exercise period, but it should 
not be regarded as a time for addresses. It is rather an 
opportunity for cooperative activity. Methods for making 
it such and an abundance of illustrative material have been 
admirably set forth in various publications. The Second 
Year Book of the Francis W. Parker School, entitled 
"The Morning Exercise as a Socializing Influence," gives 
"Historical Methods in Arithmetic," "The Great Ice Sheet," 
" Cicero," "A Study of Bridges," "The Chemistry of Water," 
as some of the striking topics presented at this school by 
some of the classes in morning exercises. Literary, musical, 
or dramatic entertainment of the whole school by various 
grades or special groups in rotation is a most effective 
means of keeping the interest in these occasions at a 



204 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

maximum. The educative value to the group presenting 
such an instructive exercise, as well as the socializing value 
to the whole school, -is beyond calculation. A good speci- 
men of group work of this sort is the little play, " Brother- 
hood," written by an eighth grade of the Francis W. Parker 
school on the theme of the Peasant Revolt of 1381, which 
they had been studying. The children conceived the char- 
acters and situations, wrote the lines, arranged the scenes, 
and staged the play as a morning exercise for the school. 
From the Year Book mentioned above we quote : 

The morning exercise is a common meeting ground ; it is the 
family altar of the school to which each brings his offerings — the 
fruits of his observations and studies, or the music, literature, and 
art that delight him ; a place where all cooperate for the pleasure 
and well-being of the whole ; where all contribute to and share 
the intellectual and spiritual life of the whole ; where all bring 
their best and choicest experiences in the most attractive form at 
their command. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Prepare a detailed plan for keeping the pupils of a given 
room busy for full time the first three days of the session, assum- 
ing that they are not provided with books for advanced study. 

2 . List the changes you think you would make in taking charge 
of a given school and indicate which of these you would attempt 
to inaugurate on the first day. 

3. Indicate what you think a new teacher coming into your 
community should do with reference to getting started right with 
certain bad boys that you know. 

4. Plan several opening exercises for the whole school along 
different lines, as (a) devotional, led by the teacher; (b) musical, 
by the teachers and outsiders ; (c) dramatic, by the fifth grade ; 
(d) current events, by a seventh grade ; (<?) musical and literary, 
by some high-school group ; (/) historical, by some group of 
pupils ; („§■) by some business or professional leader or represen- 
tative of local government. 



GETTING STARTED RIGHT 205 

READINGS 

Adlek. Moral Instruction of Children. 
BAGLEY. Classroom Management, chap. ii. 
Coe. Education in Religion and Morals, chap. xx. 
Cronson. Pupil Self-Government, chap. vi. 
Dinsmoke. Teaching a District School, chap. i. 
Geokge. Character Building, Vols. I and II. 
HOUGHTON. Stories and Exercises for Opening School. 
LINCOLN. Everyday Pedagogy, chaps, v, viii. 
PATRIDGE. The Quincy Methods, chap. ii. 

Sadler. Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, Vols. I and II. 
SALISBURY. School Management, p. 94. 
SEELEY. A New School Management, chap. iv. 
White. School Management, p. 295 ff. 

The Religious Education Association, Proceedings Second Annual Con- 
vention, Parts VI and VII. 



CHAPTER XIX 

ROUTINE 

Pros and cons. We are told that " There are at present 
two opposing theories of school management. The advo- 
cates of one theory protest against anything that resembles 
a military organization of the schools. The advocates of 
the other theory favor some measure of reversion to the 
old-time-school fashion of rigid discipline and machine- 
like organization." 

Arguments in behalf of the one theory or the other are 
on a par with the classic rural debates on whether the horse 
or the cow is the more useful animal to man. The " horse- 
ites " and the " cow-ites " were no more determined in their 
battle array than have been some of the advocates of " per- 
fect machinelike organization " in opposition to the advo- 
cates of " spontaneous individual initiative." Similarly we 
have had the contentions of the "word-method" advocates 
versus the " sentence method " ; the " Grube method " ver- 
sus the " Speer method " ; and in every aspect of education 
we have had these contests between those who insist that 
all is black and those who hold that all is white. The 
truth, of course, is that the horse is better for driving and 
the cow for milking ; that sentence reading accomplishes 
some things, word reading some others, and phonic and 
literal analysis of words some other things. Some things are 
black, some are white, some are both, and some are neither. 

So, in school management, mechanical routine is just as 
essential at times as its absence is at other times. It is 
not a question as to whether we will build by the hammer 

206 



ROUTINE 207 

method or by the saw method. When we need to drive 
nails we will use the hammer, and when boards are to be 
cut off we will prefer the saw. In all life economy there 
are many things to be reduced to routine and habit as 
quickly and as completely as possible. There are other 
matters which can be intelligently dealt with only by 
constant attention and judgment — the antithesis of habit. 
Habit effects the same marvelous economies in the life 
of a school group that it does in an individual. There is 
the same need for and the same value in class routine as in 
personal habits and the same laws of habit formation prevail. 

Function of routine. The practical question for the 
teacher is, What activities should be reduced to routine ? 
Manifestly, all those which are to be frequently repeated 
in an identical manner — those in which there is no vary- 
ing question as to what is to be done or how it is to be 
done ; in which the best method may be determined once 
for all and subsequently it remains but to repeat the process 
with the least expenditure of thought or time. 

Furthermore, it should be understood that wisely im- 
posed military routine does not lessen the initiative or 
moral responsibility of the pupil. Neither is there a ten- 
dency for all management to become mechanical because 
some aspects of it are reduced to routine. The effect of 
habit in life economy is to relieve the judgment from the 
supervision of fixed details that it may be free to direct 
the changing factors. So wise routine releases the atten- 
tive judgment of teacher and pupils for higher matters. 
Judgment cannot be everywhere. If perfunctory matters 
are not reduced to routine, matters which require judgment 
will inevitably become perfunctory. Human nature has 
ordained that both habit and judgment will function in 
the determination of conduct. Efficiency must see to it 
that each serves where it is most needed. 



208 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The problems of organization, grouping, promotions, grad- 
ing, and schedule, already discussed, involve certain varying 
factors as we have seen and their purpose is defeated by 
mechanizing them. Routine problems, dealing with con- 
stant factors, are such as the passing in and out of classes, 
passing to the blackboard, collecting and distributing wraps, 
papers, books, or pencils ; keeping desks and room in order, 
etc. Such things should require no judgment or attention 
from teacher or pupil, except to establish the routine method 
of doing them and to prevent any variation from it. 

Laws of routine. The following well-established laws 
of habit apply fully to the establishing and maintaining 
of routine : 

i. In establishing the habit or routine it is essential that 
the learner have a clear idea (a) of the thing to be done ; 
(b) of the reason for doing it — and this should be one that 
appeals to him as a sufficient motive for doing it ; (c) of the 
best way of doing it. 

2. There must then be the performance of the act (a) with 
entire attention to the, process ; (b) with complete accuracy 
in every detail, defects being noted and eliminated at each 
repetition. 

3. As mechanical accuracy increases (a) effort will de- 
crease, and (b) attention should and inevitably will disappear. 
The goal is automatic action with unfailing precision. 

4. It is essential (a) that the process be invariably the 
same ; (b) its parts in the same sequence ; (c) that atten- 
tion be recalled to rectify any variation or inaccuracy which 
may occur. 

Let us apply these principles to a concrete and typical 
case of initiating routine — the matter of passing notebooks 
or exercises. 

An illustration. Allow the children to bring up their 
papers once or twice without plan. Return them in the 



ROUTINE 209 

same unorganized manner. Note the total time consumed. 
I lave the pupils multiply the number of minutes thus used 
by the number of members in the class, and that product by 
the probable number of sets of papers to be taken up and 
returned during a week, and that by the weeks in the 
session. This total will in some cases amount to the time 
of the whole class for a week or of a single individual for an 
entire school year. Considering the irritation and confusion 
and the loss of the teacher's time in handling the papers, 
such results do not exaggerate the facts. 

Now let the class, thus vividly conscious of the need, 
propose better plans and after full discussion try out that 
which they prefer. With just a little guidance by question 
and suggestion they will hit upon the best. Every pupil 
must fully understand the plan. For example, this may be 
the plan decided upon. Each pupil at the left of the room 
passes his paper to his neighbor on his right, face up. This 
pupil places his own on top, face up, and passes the two to 
his right-hand neighbor, who also puts his on top, face up. 
This is repeated until each pupil in the right row has all the 
papers from his line in the order in which their owners sit. 
The rear pupil of the right row then comes forward with his 
pile, face up, and each right-end pupil puts his pile on top, 
face up. The teacher checks them through, turning each 
face down, then inverting the whole pile they are exactly in 
the original order. They are then returned by a pupil pass- 
ing to each right-end pupil the number of papers belonging 
to that row. These take their own from the top and pass 
the pile to the left. 

After a very few trials the largest class can collect or 
distribute the papers in half a minute without stopping the 
recitation to do it. 

While the practice is going on and all are paying attention 
the process becomes beautifully quick and efficient. But next 



210 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

day or next week someone will not be quite ready when the 
signal to pass the papers is given. One faces his paper down 
or puts it beneath the pile as it passes or carelessly drops 
the pile. A half minute to two minutes is lost to every mem- 
ber of the class because some one individual did not do his 
part well. Twenty to sixty minutes is lost to the group — but 
a forceful lesson on the meaning of cooperation is taught. 

Results. After a few days the process is automatic. 
Some of the results may be summed up thus : 

i. A large amount of time actually saved during the year. 

2. An orderly spirit which contributes to good discipline 
and avoids many of the beginnings of trouble. 

3. Genuine pleasure to the children, who always enjoy a 
certain amount of military routine. 

4. A certain esprit de corps arising from good team- 
work. These two values (3 and 4) are especially noticeable 
in marching. 

5. Most effective training in cooperative self-government. 

6. An object lesson in the origin and value of law and 
civic government. A miniature but genuine society in which 
is demonstrated the importance of every member doing his 
part faithfully, the interdependence of the individual and 
the group, the meaning of good citizenship. 

7. Development of the pupil's initiative and judgment in 
planning in a large, unselfish way for the welfare of the 
group as a whole. 

8. An object lesson in the psychology of habit formation 
which, under the teacher's further guidance, may be trans- 
ferred as an ideal to many study habits and life problems. 

Pupil initiative. Next let the children select other school 
processes which ought to be reduced to mechanical routine. 
Their free discussions will soon fix upon those activities 
which should be mechanized and distinguish those which 
cannot or should not. They will determine with much 



ROUTINE 211 

ingenuity just the series of movements which should enter 
into each process to make it most economical and efficient. 
They will readily appreciate the laws of habit formation and 
come to apply them consciously. The objections that me- 
chanical organization disregards the individuality of the child, 
that it is imposed from without, that it discourages spon- 
taneous effort, or that it is the antithesis of judgment, are 
all meaningless when routine is thus established through 
the initiative and judgment of the pupils. 

Children are equipped with all the powers of judgment 
and all the desire for social welfare that routine affairs of 
school life demand. If the class has not had experience of 
other than monarchical government, they will need caution 
against going too fast and attempting too much. The 
teacher's broader view may well steer the discussions away 
from wrong conclusions without actual intrusion, but the 
principle is valid that nothing should be told them that they 
can reasonably find out for themselves. As in teaching 
arithmetic, it is better that they should try out a wrong 
method and prove that it is wrong than to accept a better 
one unchallenged on authority. 

The educative values of orderly debate — consulting to- 
gether under parliamentary restrictions for the general good 
— will be readily appreciated. The genuineness of the 
debate and the sense of responsibility are far more impor- 
tant than the remote chance that the teacher may have a 
better plan of the routine than the children can reach with 
the aid of his occasional hints. 

Persistency. It is not well to attempt too many inno- 
vations at once. If the children have had a pleasant taste of 
initiating routine and are keen to solve other problems " for 
the good of our school," they will readily detect the occa- 
sions of undue confusion, and be ready at any designated 
time with proposals for improvement. As each plan is 



212 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

adopted, provision should be made for its unfailing applica- 
tion. Monitors elected by the class are perhaps the best 
agents for insisting upon the faithful performance of the 
plan adopted. But the best monitors are human and fallible, 
and laxness is more than likely to creep in before the per- 
formance becomes an automatic habit. Begin with the defi- 
nite warning that once a routine plan has been inaugurated 
it must never be violated. The ever-present excuse that 
"this time doesn't count" must be forever disposed of be- 
fore it is offered. Back of the monitors stands the teacher 
ready to remind, to encourage, to stimulate when they grow 
weary, and ready in the last resort to compel the pupils' 
obedience to their own plans and laws. 

The more difficult lesson of life is not the mere adopting 
of good resolutions in times of enthusiasm, but the eternal 
vigilance and incessant effort, in times of weariness or impa- 
tience, which are necessary to convert those good resolu- 
tions into stepping-stones to success in this world instead 
of paving-stones for a worse place, as in the popular prov- 
erb regarding good resolutions. More important than the 
momentary judgment as to what one ought to do is the un- 
flagging determination to do what one ough't, whether he 
wants to or not. 

Pending the deliberations and formal action of the children 
and at any time when their control may fail of efficiency, the 
teacher's hand remains on the helm. Authority comes to 
the class only so far as they can and do use it wisely. Be- 
ware of "turning over the routine" to the pupils. 

Fire drills. The routine fire drill is primarily a measure 
of precaution for the safety of the children, though it is 
admirable training in cooperation and contains an exciting 
military element which the pupils immensely enjoy. The 
purpose and exact plan are fully explained to the pupils, 
with the full understanding that they will be frequently 



ROUTINE 213 

drilled although a fire will probably never occur. At the 
given signal, which must be very clear and unmistakable, 
selected monitors run to the exits and make sure that they 
are wide open, and then stand by to keep down excitement 
and to help any little one who might stumble. Teachers 
give their classes the signals to turn, rise, and march, with 
ordinary composure. Classes march out in the predeter- 
mined order, little ones and girls first always. Every pupil 
keeps in line and in step. There must be no rush or break 
at any point in or out of the building. After pausing at a 
safe, designated distance from the building, signals are given 
and the return is in the same good order. A school of a 
thousand pupils may be thus emptied in two minutes or less. 
If every child were taught these fire drills, even though 
his own school were absolutely fireproof, theater panics 
could hardly occur in the next generation. It should be 
made second nature, in case of alarm, to keep calm, take 
one's turn, and pass quietly. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Make a list of various school activities which you think 
should be reduced to routine. 

2. Make a similar list of those that should not be made rou- 
tine and indicate for each at least one varying factor which makes 
routine unwise. 

3. Make a study of the principles of habit formation and 
determine to what extent they are applicable to the routine of 
the school groups. 

4. Do you know of any case in which children seriously under- 
took to solve a problem of management in which their decision 
was unwise ? Analyze the probable causes of their mistake. 

5. From the cases of which you know or can learn, determine 
whether children tend to be too severe or too lenient in governing 
themselves. 



214 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

6. Calculate the waste in time through the lack of economical 
routine in some classroom under your observation. Make a similar 
detailed estimate for the whole school. 

READINGS 

Bagley. Classroom Management, chaps, i-iii. 

Colvin. The Learning Process, chap. xi. 

Dutton. School Management, p. 137. 

Pyle. Outlines of Educational Psychology, chaps, x-xii. 

Rowe. Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, chap. xii. 

Thorndike. Principles of Teaching, chap. viii. 

Consult any good psychology on the laws of habit. 



CHAPTER XX 

ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING AND STUDY 

Some types of waste. The prime essential of all good 
management is elimination of waste. In school the great- 
est wastes as well as the greatest values are not in matters 
of organization or the material things but in teaching and 
study. While these are not properly within the scope of 
this volume, a few striking aspects of the waste problem may 
be outlined here without unduly digressing into the field of 
teaching methods. Some of these forms of waste are : 

i. Teaching subject matter which lacks practical value. 

2. Teaching without clear aims and plans. 

3. Teaching without systematic check upon deficiencies 
and attainments. 

4. Continuing to teach a pupil what he already adequately 
knows. 

5. Teaching without insuring the use and retention of 
that which is taught. 

6. Teaching without training in the art of economical 
study. 

7. Drudgery in either teaching or study. 

Useless material. The burden of most recent discus- 
sions of " waste in education " has been the need for a 
reorganization of the curriculum by the elimination of all 
antiquated materials and all that is not essentially practical. 
It is very positively asserted by some of our best recent 
writers that no subject and no topic of any subject can 
justly be retained except on the ground of its practical or 
vocational value. It is now quite generally conceded that 

215 



216 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

subjects of practical importance have no less disciplinary 
values than those which are inherently of no direct use, 
and there is a strong tendency to take the same attitude 
with reference to the cultural values, namely, that the most 
practical subjects are the most cultural. The choice of 
materials must be left largely to the makers of textbooks 
and curricula, but the educative values derived from any 
given topic will still vary, both in kind and degree, through 
the whole range of child capacities, mainly according to 
the ideals and efficiency of the teacher. Practical values 
are at least more demonstrable, more definite, and more 
certain to be of social service. 

Lack of aim. A more serious waste thus arises from 
not appreciating the educative significance or planning 
the educative processes in the topics one does teach. In 
any lesson which lacks aim and plan, the getting of re- 
sults is a mere matter of chance. Teachers too commonly 
assume that the planning has been done in the textbook 
and that their duty is but to follow the book, blindly 
trusting to some magic of the printed word to do the 
teaching. Many modern books do plan their topics most 
admirably, but it is little they can do toward planning the 
teaching. Neither is it possible for a writer on methods to 
prescribe a universal plan for all lessons or for all lessons 
of a given type or even for all lessons on a given topic. 
Ready-made plans in the educational journals or provided 
by authorities have their value for suggestion. They are 
useful models for study and afford a convenient means of 
making an observation of the writer's method when an 
actual visit to his classroom would be impracticable. One 
may adopt and adapt ideas freely from all these sources, but 
only a wooden sort of teacher can teach another's plans 
outright. It is not the plan, but the making of it, that 
betters one's teaching. 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 217 

Planning lessons. Thorough planning of a lesson or a 
group of lessons should include the following points : 

1. Aim. A definite idea of the results or educative 
values to be attained by the lesson. These should be in 
terms of changes to be brought about in the pupils ; such 
as increased skill of a specific sort, new interests, moral or 
appreciative attitude, study habit, or a knowledge of special 
facts. This is the teacher s aim. 

2. Motivation. A clear notion of the motive which it is 
expected will impel the children to the particular self-activity 
by which the educative result aimed for can be attained ; to- 
gether with the incentive or device by which the teacher 
assumes that this motive will be brought into play and the 
activity assured. This would have the form of a statement 
of the pupil's problem or desire, and hence is a statement 
of the pupil's aim. Psychologically, desires are subjective 
states, but they are aroused or known only with reference to 
their objects ; therefore this statement should be objective. 
It should state the thing the pupil wants or zvants to do. 
Ordinarily the same motive is not equally active or the same 
incentive equally effective for all the members of a class. 
Therefore a teacher should give separate consideration to the 
probable individual aims or different reactions of exceptional 
individuals. 

3. Type and steps of lesson. The foregoing essentials, the 
teacher's aim and the pupil's aim, will determine the type 
of lesson to be used, which is primarily the kind of think- 
ing or effort to be required of the child. This in turn must 
be resolved into the several specific acts or steps of the lesson 
by which the pupils will proceed from their present interests 
and attainments to the results sought in the teacher's aim. 
The teacher's aim, or tHe end sought, determines the type 
of lesson to be used ; while the pupil's aim, or the motivation, 
will largely determine the method to be used. The steps of 



218 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the lesson must consist in pupil-activity — not topics or 
teacher-performance . 

4. For motivating each of the steps of the lesson the 
teacher should plan some pivotal question or problem for 
solution. 

5. Apparatus, illustrative materials, references, and data 
to be used in the lesson should be prepared as part of the 
planning. 

6. The assignment of further work to be done by the 
pupils needs to be carefully planned. This is the principal 
means of motivating successful study. 

Value of writing plan. The writing out of the plan of 
the lesson serves mainly to clarify the teacher's own ideas. 
One seldom realizes how vague his thoughts are until he 
attempts to commit them to writing. For a young teacher, 
particularly one in training, plan-writing is fraught with the 
richest results in better understanding of children and of 
educative processes. It is an invaluable connecting link 
between the theoretical and the practical in pedagogy. 

Written plan a guide to criticism. The plan, when written, 
serves very slightly as a guide in the actual teaching — it is 
the plan in the mind of the teacher which must direct the 
class work — but it is still important as a basis of supervisory 
criticism. The only rational basis of criticizing what a teacher 
does is a knowledge of what the teacher is trying to do. 
Even an expert supervisor will comment to little advantage 
while judging a lesson in terms of what he himself would 
have done with that subject matter. By, having before him 
the teacher's written statement of aims, motives, and steps 
intended, he may intelligently distinguish between errors of 
aim and faults of execution. 

Form of plan. The form of the written plan is of little' 
consequence. The essentials already enumerated should stand 
out clearly in the mind of the teacher and before the eye of 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 219 

the supervisor. For convenienec and mutual understand- 
ing it is well for a supervisor and teachers to agree upon 
a compact and easy arrangement of the essentials. Details 
ought always to be left to the initiative of the individual. 
The arrangement of a plan is largely a diagram of one's 
thoughts, and to restrict the arrangement is to hamper the 
thoughts. 

When plan-writing becomes unnecessary. The sheer labor 
of writing out plans makes it impossible to do this for every 
lesson. To require it is to sacrifice teaching energy for red 
tape. However, so long as the teacher has great difficulty 
in thinking out the essentials of the plan with sufficient 
definiteness to reduce them to writing, so long it is impor- 
tant that just this be done. When the laborious writing of 
many plans has established a habit of thinking a lesson in 
terms of definite aims and specific results, when one comes 
to make daily preparations in terms of educative processes 
rather than textbook topics, in terms of pupil- activity rather 
than teacher-performance, then effective planning may well 
be done without much writing. Still, even the most experi- 
enced teacher will find the written plan a useful recourse 
when a new field is attempted, when class work is becoming 
lifeless or results are unsatisfactory. When a supervisory 
officer is seeking to raise standards of work or revise modes 
of procedure, the teacher's written plan affords a needed 
common ground for discussion, and itself clarifies and in- 
vigorates the teaching policy. The writing of plans should 
not be kept up to the point of becoming perfunctory routine, 
nor should it ever be entirely and permanently abandoned. 

Self-criticism. Finally, the written plan will serve its high- 
est function after the lesson, as a means of checking up aims 
. over against achievements. Self-criticism is more valuable 
and, with a good teacher, much more common than super- 
visory criticism. Next, in avoidance of waste, to knowing 



220 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

what one ought to do is knowing when it is done. ' ' The 
best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley," and a 
teacher who aims high seldom attains his full purpose with 
all the members of his class. After the lesson one should 
think how far his aims were accomplished for the whole 
class and how far for exceptional individuals, which motives 
worked well and which were not effective, which pupils re- 
sponded to the chosen incentives and which did not, what 
part of the task undertaken is completed and what remains 
yet to be done. To-morrow's plan must be based on to-day's 
attainments rather than on to-day's plan. It is this definite- 
ness of aim, planning and checking of achievements, that 
insures results and thoroughness in the work of a teacher. 

Progress notes. However well the skilled mind can carry 
the plan of a lesson without written aid, records of the pupils' 
progress should not be left to a busy, crowded memory. The 
bookkeeping that schools most need and that has been most 
neglected is a daily record of the educative achievements 
and needs of individuals and of the class. 

" Wm. confuses there and their." " Mary told to practice 
making capital G and F." " Chas. mixed on 7 x 8 and zero 
combinations." " Jas. to look up relative population of New 
Orleans and San Francisco." " Study Susie's restlessness. 
Nervous ? " "Is Tom deaf or dreamy ? " Such would be 
the kind of frequently appearing notes regarding the needs 
and assignments of individuals. But there would also be 
class notations, as : " Drill all on sepArate, magnify, equa- 
Tion." "Question arose how height of a mountain is actually 
found. Prepare to explain and illustrate." "Drill twice each 
week on uses of infinitives, until class is perfect." "Climate 
of Brazil discussed. Develop its influence on commerce in 
Wednesday's lesson." " Put was with plural subject on 
inexcusable list after discussion to-morrow." " Confusion 
in division with o in quotient. Review and drill." 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 221 

Such jottings should become a habit. A handy "prog- 
ress book " or a space in the plan book at the end of each 
day's plans should be kept for this purpose. Useful abbrevia- 
tions and compact clearness of arrangement should be culti- 
vated. A busy superintendent can gather more information 
regarding a teacher's thoroughness and value by a glance at 
such notes and a little investigation as to how they have been 
followed up than by long observation of actual teaching — 
though this last cannot be dispensed with. These " progress 
notes," once taken down, become unfinished business which 
has the precedence in planning further procedure. Some 
of them will determine the next day's plans, some demand 
attention during the study periods, some must wait for occa- 
sional or periodical reviews, some will be taken up in 
teachers' meetings, or in conference with the principal, super- 
visor, or medical inspector. But once made, like a debit on 
the day book, it must not be lost sight of until checked off 
as accomplished or attended to. 

Eliminating superfluous drill. In our discussion of pro- 
motions we called attention to the economy and motivation 
attained by the simple device of relieving individual pupils 
from the drill classes in spelling, penmanship, or the mechan- 
ics of any other subject whenever they manifest the particular 
ability sought in that class and make use of it in all zvork 
outside of that class. The economy here is not merely that 
some pupils are relieved from further learning what they 
have already learned and from being bored by the tedium 
of continuing to do what is already done, but the fact that 
any pupil may be excused from any drill work just so soon 
as the aim of the drill is accomplished, tremendously vitalizes 
and economizes all the drill work of the class. Ten minutes' 
drill is a vastly different thing when one is trying to master 
some specific skill adjustment which he finds is necessary 
for his work from what it is when one is simply enduring 



222 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the inevitable writing period of the daily schedule. Applica- 
tion of what one has learned — which is after all the only 
permanent learning — is a very different matter when applica- 
tion is the only means of avoiding regular drill lessons. 
Nothing is more certain than that some pupils need more 
drill on any particular task than do others. To keep all 
pupils on the same task the same length of time must neces- 
sarily be wasteful. Either the rapid pupils are wastefully re- 
tarded and more wastefully bored with doing useless things 
or else the slower pupils are wastefully hurried and more 
wastefully discouraged. Any organization which does not 
provide for pupils' leaving tasks when they are accomplished 
is in a large measure inefficient. 

Waste in lack of thoroughness. Pedagogical wasteful- 
ness culminates in the very common practice of filling at 
the spigot of laborious drill while wasting at the bung-hole of 
careless forgetfulness. Discouraged teachers complain that 
teaching is a process of filling a sieve with water. However 
faithfully they labor to get the knowledge in at one ear, much 
of it immediately goes out the other. Wherefore they dis- 
gustedly assert that there is nothing between the two to stop 
it. We must agree that there is little hope for progress when 
what is taught won't stay taught. Whatever the method, 
thoroughness and permanency are essential to teaching. 

What is " thoroughness " ? But herein alone lies thor- 
oughness : not that we repeat ad nauseam in the teaching, 
but that having taught we see to it that what is taught is 
used ; that when a mistake is corrected that mistake ceases 
to occur ; that when a right way of doing a thing has been 
learned, only that way is used thereafter, whatever the cost 
of effort and watchfulness, until habit is formed and takes 
up the burden. Particularly in contending against home- 
formed and home-encouraged habits of speech is eternal 
vigilance the price of thoroughness and economy. Progress 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 223 

notes will constitute an invaluable aid in attaining vigilant 
thoroughness. A list of " inexcusables " is an especially 
effective device. 

What errors are inexcusable? When a definite thing 
has been adequately taught, reviewed, drilled upon, and 
practiced until there is no doubt that every pupil can use 
it correctly if he will, until only carelessness can explain 
the continued misuse of it, that misuse should be classed 
as inexcusable. Dullness, ignorance, failure to compre- 
hend, inability to do the thing required — these demand 
patience and further careful teaching ; but heedlessness, 
persistent doing wrong what one can do right, through lack 
of self-control in formation of the new habit — these need 
vigorous, relentless treatment. The spelling of common 
words, the fundamental number combinations, gross collo- 
quialisms, inelegancies, and everyday grammatical blunders, 
— these are the sort of things which must be made taboo. 
A paper containing one of these " inexcusables " is simply 
rejected in to to and must be rewritten or at least purged 
of the offending error without help before it is considered. 
A recitation in which one occurs is deemed a failure. The 
guilty pupil is stopped instantly and seated ingloriously. 
Like a parliamentary point of order, the correcting of an 
inexcusable always has precedence over any other business. 
Punishments, even specified punishments, may be inflicted, 
because the purpose is to make it impossible for the child 
to forget until the right habit is formed. 

Making the list of " inexcusables." In making additions 
to such a list of inexcusables, only one thing at a time should 
be permitted and that only after review, special drill, and 
full warning that henceforth this particular blunder shall be 
intolerable. Never should the list be used as a cheap incen- 
tive to force extra exertion in the study of new lessons. It 
is entirely excusable to make any mistake once. Perfection 



224 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

in any ability is acquired by a child only very slowly and 
gradually. The term " inexcusable " is a severe one. It is 
better not to use it than to abuse it. It must mean two 
things, — that the mistake ought not to be excused and that 
it will not be excused. 

Social motivation. Both in making and in enforcing this 
list of the errors which will not be tolerated social motiva- 
tion should be used as far as practicable. It is best that 
each addition to the list should be made by formal vote of 
the class, and they should be warned against haste rather 
than led on too rapidly. They should feel very distinctly 
that putting any tendency of theirs on this list is a very 
positive and serious " swearing-off." It should be a point 
of honor that there shall be no infraction permitted. As the 
purpose is to make every child sensitive to the bad usage, 
it is well to have them organize themselves into teams, or 
else utilize regular groups, rows, or other divisions, for the 
special purpose of watching, correcting, and penalizing each 
other on these mistakes. 

Grammatical weeks. For a very few of the most deep- 
rooted tendencies, such as "we was," "ain't," have with 
the past tense' instead of with the participle, etc., there 
might well be special weeks set aside. Parents should be 
informed and asked to cooperate. This may be done through 
parents' meetings or through circular letters formulated, 
authorized, and signed by the class. Brief drills several 
times a day should be introduced in school, and every child 
should be a detective in school, at home, and on the play- 
ground. Every plan should be adopted which will keep that 
correct usage vividly in the foreground of consciousness dur- 
ing the entire week, and drills should be frequent enough to 
fix the habit for all time. 

Waste in study. The art of study like the art of teach- 
ing is not properly within the scope of this work. But it is 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 225 

not amiss to emphasize the recent discussions regarding 
the necessity of teaching and training children to study. 
After all, the child's own work is all there is about the 
school that is actually educative. All things else, including 
the teacher and all that he can do, are merely means to 
secure and direct that child-activity. Pupil-activity is pri- 
marily and chiefly study. Efficient study is one of the 
most advanced and difficult of human arts. Few teachers 
can study effectively and economically. 1 low very few can 
direct others wisely in the complexities of the process! 
Vet teachers have blandly assumed that if a child is given 
an assignment in a book he should by nature know just 
how to master it. Some even avow that one can no more 
be taught to digest his lesson than he can be taught to 
digest his food ; all that is necessary is to give him the 
food and let nature do the rest ! 

The art of study must be taught, also the art of teaching 
children how to study. Here we can do no more than lay 
down a few simple principles for training in study. 

Study is selective thinking. All effective study consists 
in deliberate, purposive, selective thinking. It consists in 
selecting the problem to be solved and then the data which 
will help to solve it and the method of solution ; in selecting 
new ideas out of their setting of familiar ones, in selecting 
difficult points out of the many that are readily grasped, in 
selecting the viewpoint or aspect which contributes to one's 
present purpose and passing over the many others which 
are not at the time pertinent, in selecting one difficulty at 
a time for adjustment and then selecting those ideas which 
can contribute to that adjustment. 

Dead-level study is waste. Careful observation will soon 
demonstrate that children often work as hard on learning 
to spell words that they already know and could hardly mis- 
spell with an effort as they do on those that are strange 



226 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

and difficult ; they study the syllables that are unmistakable 
as much as they do those with treacherous, unusual combi- 
nations. The result is that with much labor just those 
things are learned which were known before. Worse still, 
pupils are often told by teachers to " study each word ten 
times." They spend as much time on the " tables of fives " 
in multiplication which they never miss, or the sixes which 
they seldom miss, as on the sevens and zero combinations 
in which occur about nine tenths of all the mistakes that 
are made. And further, by studying them as "tables " they 
spend as much effort on six times one as they do on six 
times nine, and much of their energy is expended on get- 
ting them in an order which is never used in practice. The 
more one drills in routine fashion over materials imperfectly 
known, the more he fixes in his mind the things already 
there and the more he becomes incapable of seeing the 
things not already understood. And this is what most chil- 
dren do when reviewing or relearning a poorly prepared 
lesson. It is a safe estimate that not less than fifty per cent 
of the study of school children is waste. 

Assignment. The child's study may be controlled by the 
teacher (i) in the assignment, (2) by direct supervision, 
and (3) by the recitation. 

The assignment should consist in (1) making the prob- 
lem or purpose of the lesson clear and dynamic in the 
minds of the pupils ; (2) arousing a genuine interest in 
the thing to be done, making the problem one of signifi- 
cance to the learner ; (3) indicating the special difficulties 
and preparing the pupils to overcome them successfully ; 

(4) making the pupils conscious of the most economical 
modes of learning the lesson, alert to seek for these modes 
and keen to recognize and eliminate wasteful dawdling ; and 

(5) guiding the pupils in finding the essentials to be learned 
and the kind and degree of learning needed for each. 



ELIMINATING WASTE IN TEACHING 227 

In the recitation the pupil should be held responsible 
for the kind of learning and the kind of results which are 
sought. Detailed, fragmentary questions will secure study 
and thinking only of the detailed, fragmentary sort. 



PROBLEMS 

1. Observe and criticize the teaching of several lessons from 
the standpoint of economy due to definiteness of the teacher's aim. 

2. In any lesson, note the difference in attainment among 
pupils due to definiteness of aim in what they are doing. Specify 
the instances and the evidences. 

3. Criticize several textbooks on the ground of the clearness 
and definiteness with which they bring the aim of each lesson 
before the student. 

4. Write out exactly what you regard as the aim, in terms of 
pupil's attainments, of several selected lessons in different subjects. 

5. Write out a statement of the pupil's aim for the same 
lessons. 

6. Study and compare carefully the methods of preparing 
plans as given in Strayer, McMurry, Earhart, and others. (See 
Readings.) 

7. Study and compare carefully the classification of lesson 
types given in similar works. 

8. Plan a method of keeping progress notes on your own 
personal studies. 

9. Examine any accessible progress notes kept by teachers 
and make out a series of them based on actual observation or 
teaching of classes. ■ 

10. Write out recommendations and probable effect, in the 
class under observation, of (a) promoting the pupils now pro- 
ficient out of the drill classes in fundamentals ; (/>) making the 
standard of work out of the drill class rather than in it the basis 
of promotion. 

11. Make a practical list of " inexcusables " for the class 
under observation. 



228 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

READINGS 

Chancellor. Class Teaching and Management, chap. v. 

Charters. Methods of Teaching, chap. xxv. 

Colgrove. The Teacher and the School, chaps, xviii, xix. 

Dearborn. How to Learn Easily, chap. i. 

Earhart. Types of Teaching, chaps, viii, xiv, xv. 

Hall-Quest. Supervised Study. 

McMurry, C. A. Method of the Recitation, chap. xiv. 

McMurry, F. M. How to Study, and Teaching How to Study. 

O'Shea. Everyday Problems in Teaching, chap. vi. 

Parker. Methods of Teaching in High School, chaps, xvi, xxi. 

Strayer. The Teaching Process, chap. vii. 

Strayer and Norsworthy. How to Teach, chap. xiv. 

Swift. Mind in the Making, chaps, i, ix, x. 

Whipple. How to Study Effectively. 

United States Bureau of Education 

Bulletin No. j8, 1913, " Economy of Time in Education." 



CHAPTER XXI 
WORK AND DRUDGERY 

Play and work. Play, we are told, is activity performed 
because of the satisfaction afforded the doer in the process 
itself, while ivork has its incentive in some reward beyond 
itself which the worker seeks. The distinction seems to be 
largely lost when play becomes professionalized or when 
one comes to love his work for its own sake rather than 
for its rewards, for then one's play becomes his work and 
his work becomes play. Often what is work for one is 
play for another, and vice versa. We have all heard of the 
man who cleared his garden of stones by drawing a face 
on the fence and inviting, several boys to come and throw 
stones at it. He turned work into play. It is the activity 
itself that every healthy person enjoys, and the mere fact 
of its being useful does not ordinarily rob it of its attrac- 
tiveness. Also it is the activity itself that is educative. But 
it is the law of all animal nature that- any activity which is 
agreeable tends to be repeated, while that which is disagree- 
able tends by the very fact of its unpleasantness to be in- 
hibited. That which is done pleasurably, in other words, 
is more readily and more permanently learned than that 
which is done without interest. 

Routine and drudgery. Routine, as we have already 
seen, is the. sort of activity which by frequent repetition 
becomes easy and self-directive. It is work, in that it is 
not done for its own sake, but work in which the effort 
and attention required to perform it have been reduced to a 
minimum. When work becomes so hard and so continuous 

229 



230 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

that interest in the end is lost in fatigue or in dislike of 
the process itself, when routine duties must be performed 
to the point where the purpose is lost sight of and the 
effort-reducing influences of habit formation do not reduce 
the necessary strain and attention so that the work may go 
on automatically while other interests occupy the mind, then 
work becomes drudgery. Play is interesting for its own sake, 
work for the sake of something beyond itself ; but drudgery 
is without interest. Drudgery is disheartening, depressing, 
and grows harder instead of easier with repetition — except 
so far as habit may ultimately come to the rescue. 

Aims, — fleeting and abiding. Nature has provided that 
the lower forms of life and man in his simpler processes 
shall act in response to immediate stimuli, to interests that 
look no farther than the moment of acting. Such are play 
and such are other activities which satisfy some need or 
desire of the instant. The condition of civilization, how- 
ever, is that man shall by means of his intellect foresee 
needs of the morrow, of the winter, of old age, or of future 
generations and shall feel an interest in these sufficient to 
outweigh all but the most urgent of his immediate interests. 
These higher and more distant purposes become tremen- 
dous forces in determining the conduct of civilized adults 
and to a much less degree that of the immature — children 
and savages. The aim of education is to substitute these 
larger purposes of civilized humanity for the push and pull of 
momentary impulses as the determining factors in human con- 
duct. Not to eliminate the latter, but to subject them to the 
aims and judgment of the intelligence. To state it another 
way, the aim of education is to establish the power and habit 
of working persistently, consecutively, and determinedly 
toward ends which are foreseen ; to establish the capacity 
for " endurance against obstacles and through hindrances." 
It is a " demand for continuity in the face of difficulties." 



WORK AND DRUDGERY 23 1 

Is drudgery blessed ? Now, because the characteristic of 
drudgery is that it affords difficulties and necessitates the 
suppression of immediate desires, it has become traditional 
that drudgery, per se, develops character ; that it trains one 
to act independently of his inclinations, to respond to the 
call of duty or purpose rather than of pleasure. If this 
were true, drudgery would indeed be our supreme educative 
asset. Hut is it true ? Our purpose is not to incapacitate 
one for responding to momentary interests but to capacitate 
him to have enduring purposes, which will outweigh the 
others when they conflict. The driving force in drudgery 
is not a dominating purpose ruling from within but a grind- 
ing necessity imposed from without. Merely doing the 
thing required can at best develop a perfunctory habit. The 
development of character is the development of ruling pur- 
poses. One learns to act independently of his temporary 
impulses, not negatively by being coerced into the doing of 
certain tasks, but positively by acquiring guiding ideals. 
Servile submission to external necessity develops no trait of 
character but servility. Power to respond continuously to 
a sense of duty can come only through finding satisfaction 
in acting from a sense of duty. The love of doing right 
for right's sake is fostered only by finding the joy in doing 
right for right's sake. The fundamental mistake of the 
advocates of the " Blessed be drudgery " theory is the 
assumption that the child's character is developed by 
the teacher's purposes. 

Dewey on work and drudgery. The distinction is stated 
by Professor John Dewey in his forceful monograph, " In- 
terest and Effort." He says : 

There seems to be no better name for the acts of using inter- 
mediate means, or appliances, to reach ends than work. When 
employed in this way, however, work must be distinguished from 
labor and from toil and drudgery. Labor means a form of work 



232 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

in which the direct result accomplished is of value only as a means 
of exchange for something else. It is an economic term, being 
applied to that form of work where the product is paid for, and 
the money paid is used for objects of more direct value. Toil 
implies unusual arduousness in the task, involving fatigue. Drudg- 
ery is an activity which in itself is quite disagreeable, performed 
under the constraint of some quite extraneous need (p. 78). 

If one means by a task simply an undertaking involving diffi- 
culties that have to be overcome, then children, youth, and adults 
alike require tasks in order that there may be continued develop- 
ment. But if one means by a task something that has no interest, 
makes no appeal, that is wholly alien and hence uncongenial, the 
matter is quite different. Tasks in the former sense are educative 
because they supply an indispensable stimulus to thinking, to re- 
flective inquiry. Tasks in the latter sense signify nothing but sheer 
strain, constraint, and the need of some external motivation for 
keeping at them. They are //;zeducative because they fail to intro- 
duce a clearer consciousness of ends and a search for proper means 
of realization. They are wzVeducative because they deaden and 
stupefy ; they lead to that confused and dulled state of mind that 
always attends an action carried on without a realizing sense of 
what it is all about. They are also jw^educative because they lead 
to dependence upon external ends ; the child works simply because 
of the pressure of the task master and diverts his energies just in 
the degree in which this pressure is relaxed ; or he works because 
of some alien inducement — -to get some reward that has no 
intrinsic connection with what he is doing (p. 54). 

The meaning of drudgery. A school task, then, contrib- 
utes to the making of character in just about the degree 
that it is self-directed ; impelled by enduring purposes from 
within rather than by compulsion from without. The work 
that a child does through a sense of duty or a sense of obliga- 
tion, through a pride of self-control or a desire to give 
pleasure to others, — such acts are work motivated in the 
highest degree. They are as far from drudgery as possible. 
Tasks that are done through a fear of punishment, through 



WORK AND DRUDGERY 233 

the domineering presence of the master, through any coer- 
cion that the toiler would avoid if he could, — these are the 
tasks that make for servility, for weakness of character, for 
obedience to the impulse of the moment. It is just as truly 
a yielding to momentary interest to struggle on through labor 
under the prodding of fear or of necessity as to yield to the 
^iren call of sensuous pleasure. Drudgery is like work in 
the lack of an intrinsic attractiveness in the doing, but it is 
like play in the lack of an abiding purpose ; it affords the 
toil but lacks either the primitive or the civilized reason for 
toiling. It tends neither to establish a process through its 
agreeableness nor to justify it through its reasonableness. 
Just one tiling is zvorse for character building than doing 
one's duty through compulsion from without — and that is 
not doing it, whatever the reason. 

What makes for character ? Without the requisite pupil- 
activity there is no possibility of education. The thing that 
ought to be done must be done whether one wants to do it 
or not, but the character development consists not in being 
made to do what one does not want to do but in wanting 
to do what one ought to do. Character lies not in some 
overt thing having been done but in something having been 
done for the sake of a high ideal. The gratuitous exercise 
of will power, the gritty determination to overcome difficul- 
ties for the sake of overcoming, to do the hard thing because 
it is hard — these are the very foundation stones of strong 
character. The teacher who leads a child to such splendid 
achievement has done a noble thing. But he has done some- 
thing as different as possible from exercising his own will 
power upon the child, from determining for the child that 
he must overcome the difficulties. 

Life has no need for drudges. Life is full of duties that 
can be made easy through intelligent reduction to routine. 
Life is full of work — hard work — limitless things to be 



234 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

done that are worth while doing and doing well. And there 
is reward, near or far, *for doing things well and for work- 
ing hard and faithfully. The world needs workers, doers of 
intelligent, purposeful, hard, wholesome work, and the world 
pays them and respects them. But the meanest walks of 
life -are already cluttered with drudges, those who toil aim- 
lessly, hopelessly, painfully, and must be driven to every step 
of their tasks. They get little for their service and are usu- 
ally not worth that little. If power must be perpetually 
directed from without, mule power or steam power is in- 
comparably cheaper and better than human muscle power. 
Self-directing intelligence is the commodity that makes any 
person valuable to himself and others. This is developed 
by work — not by drudgery. If one must be a driven 
drudge in life, surely he needs no training for it in school. 
Mere drudgery cannot educate. 

Summary principles. We may sum up the foregoing dis- 
cussion in a few principles, with their application to practical 
problems : 

1. Education is possible only through the pupil 's activity. 
Whatever is done leaves some educative result. 

2. The same pupil-activity may be made play or work or 
drudgery according to the manner of its motivation. It has 
already been shown that much of it may profitably be re- 
duced to routine. Such common devices of the primary 
teacher as number games and story dramatizations give a 
play quality to lessons which must otherwise be work or 
drudgery. So does the spelling match or other forms of 
competitive recitation. The very attitude or tone of the 
teacher may make the difference between spiritless toil and 
spirited play; for example, contrast the pupils' response to 
an imperious " Now, every one of you get that lesson and 
be quick about it," with the effect of a smiling " Let us see 
which one of the class can finish this lesson first." 



WORK AND DRUDGERY 235 

3. School work naturally gravitates toward drudgery un- 
less good teaching counteracts the tendency. The unbroken 
regularity of daily lesson assignments inevitably tends to 
sameness, to monotony, and often to the strain of unduly 
heavy requirements if special care is not taken to avoid these 
very tendencies. Any school work, because of its abstract- 
ness and lack of immediate usefulness, will inevitably fall 
into the form of drudgery by the mere fact of failure to con- 
nect it with ever-renewed and quickening interests. At best, 
teaching machinery will progressively consume more and 
more of the available energy in friction and lost motion un- 
less constantly lubricated with intelligent adaptation. It will 
run constantly harder and heavier if the contact of the parts 
with each other and with the driving force is not faithfully 
adjusted wherever they are found to bind or drag. 

4. Efficiency in learning is attained, according to natural 
laws, when the learning act is either play or work or is re- 
duced to routine, but drudgery is neither natural nor efficient 
as a learning process. Wholly in infancy, almost wholly in 
the kindergarten and in a decreasing degree throughout the 
primary grades, the learning activities readily take the form 
of pleasurable pby. This very pleasurableness is nature's 
means of making the doing of new things easy for the young 
and strengthening the tendency to retain permanently what 
is learned. As the responsibilities of mature life approach, 
there develops the capacity for continued self-direction in 
response to permanent policies and distant aims which would 
have no force in early childhood. One is driven through 
the whole year's work for the sake of the annual promo- 
tion, or drives himself through high school and college 
for the sake of success in a chosen occupation ; or one toils 
through long, hard tasks in order to excel his fellows ; or he 
grapples with a problem that he may be victorious over its 
difficulties. Continued striving to attain a purpose — this is 



236 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

the characteristic of work. But tasks that are accomplished 
only through the continued pushing, nagging, prodding of 
some external force or will power is work done at the very 
lowest standard of efficiency. The resultant learning is, of 
necessity, very imperfectly accomplished, and the waste of 
energy is enormous. The very disagreeableness through 
psychological necessity increases the difficulty and reduces 
the permanency of the connections made. Economy in 
learning, then, consists in keeping all school tasks in the 
plane of play or of zvork, — zvholly play in early childhood 
and progressively making the transition to zvork as one 
grows toward maturity, — ■ in reducing suitable activities 
to routine Jiabits but allozving no learning to fall to the 
wasteful level of drudgery. 

5. The developmerit of character, increasing capacity for 
persistent consecutive achievement without external com- 
pulsion, is attained only by forming the habit of acting 
from inner ideals and purposes. This is possible neither 
through play nor drudgery but only through being accustomed 
to consistent, well-motivated work. 

6. Disappointment in attaining an end for which one has 
worked faithfully begets discouragement and loss of confi- 
dence in ideals and purposes. Aims too remote may stimu- 
late for a time and then gradually lose their effectiveness. 
It is therefore necessary in teaching to set up definite and 
attainable ends, especially the sort that every child may suc- 
ceed in reaching. Prizes have the objection that but very 
few can possibly secure them. Even if they should stimu- 
late all the class a first time, the great majority would soon 
become immune to any stimulating effect. Promotions at long 
intervals tend to be effective for only a short while before 
the time they are determined. Perhaps the most reliable 
and generally effective purpose for daily use is the love of 
mastering difficulties, of solving the problem immediately 



WORK AND DRUDGERY 237 

in hand, or of overcoming an obstacle. To keep this sort 
of purpose vital, tasks assigned must be carefully adjusted 
to the pupil's capacities — hard enough to challenge strenu- 
ous effort but not too hard to make ultimate success reason- 
ably sure. Practically, this means that assignments must be 
in terms of definite achievements, either objective or sub- 
jective, which the pupil fully appreciates and knows when 
he has reached. 

Drudgery in teaching. It is hardly less important for 
teaching efficiency than for learning efficiency that necessary 
tasks should be so adjusted as never to fall into the waste- 
fulness of drudgery. The drive of a daily schedule, of rules 
and regulations, the custom of taking up written work and 
returning it at a given time with certain sorts of correc- 
tions, and the like, serve as an external impelling force quite 
unlike an inner purpose or aim. Such tasks by their mo- 
notony, by their heavy laboriousness, by the lack of any 
feeling of definite achievement, lose the pleasing character 
of play or the worth-while character of work. Because they 
demand constant attention and cannot be done automatically 
with success, however often repeated, they cannot be made 
easy or economical by reducing them to routine. When a 
considerable portion of the daily work of a teacher takes on 
this dreary character, teaching becomes dreadful in its op- 
pressive monotony, hopeless in its aimlessness, and almost 
profitless in its uninspiring deadness. In the next chapter 
we shall attempt to show how one typical sort of teaching 
drudgery may be lifted to the plane of economical and inter- 
esting work. It is our firm belief that whenever any task 
of teacher or of pupil cannot be elevated from the plane of 
drudgery there is something radically wrong with the assign- 
ment of the task. Work must be done or there is no teach- 
ing or learning, but the particular task or the particular form 
or quantity of it or the manner of assignment which converts 



238 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

it into drudgery is wrong. It is precisely this motivating 
of tasks, of fitting them to worthy purposes and vital inter- 
ests that constitutes good teaching and good management. 
Neither study nor teaching is good if it is drudgery. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Observe carefully the day's work of a child in school and list 
as many as practicable of his activities which are distinctly pleas- 
urable and those which are unpleasant. In which of these groups 
does he appear to make the more rapid progress in learning the 
processes involved ? 

2. Select typical activities which have the character of drudgery 
and make suggestions for changing them, without sacrificing their 
educative value, (a) to well-motivated work ; (b) to play. 

3. Select forms of work and indicate means of converting them 
into play without destroying their teaching value ; also of converting 
play into work. 

4. Give instances where work has dropped to the level of 
drudgery : (a) through having the purposes of the pupil too 
remote ; (i>) through too great monotony ; (c) through too heavy 
tasks ; (d) through repeated lack of success in attaining the aim. 
In each instance give your plan for remedying the fault. 

READINGS 

Darroch. Psychology in the Training of the Teacher, chap. v. 

De Garmo. Interest and Education, chap. viii. 

Dewey. Democracy and Education, chap. xv. 

Dewey. Interest and Effort in Education. 

Klapper. Principles of Educational Practice, chaps, xiii, xiv. 

Moore. What is Education ? chap. viii. 

Payot. The Education of the Will, chap, iv, p. iv. 

Ruediger. The Principles of Education, p. 267. 

Thorndike. Educational Psychology (Briefer Course), chaps, v, vi. 

Thorndike. Principles of Teaching, chap. v. 



CHAPTER XXII 

MARKING EXERCISES 

The drudgery of marking papers. In the gospel of good 
teaching, as we have seen, there can be no such beatitude 
as " Blessed be drudgery." Blessed be work, hard work, 
persistent, relentless, purposeful work, but not drudgery. 
It becomes then a most practical problem of school man- 
agement to eliminate the drudgery — not by the neglect or 
abandoning of a single task that is useful or profitable, but 
by changing it somehow to interesting, wholesome, intelli- 
gent work. There is practically universal agreement that of 
all the tasks of the teacher, correcting pupils' exercises is 
the nearest approximation to hopeless drudgery. 

Prevents good teaching. The conscientious teacher ordi- 
narily spends countless dreary hours, after school and late 
at night, when mind and body are wearied, painfully mark- 
ing the same ever-recurring mistakes by some more or less 
elaborate system of symbols and affixing to pupils' efforts 
valuations which can be justified by no logical or psycho- 
logical reasoning. From papyrus in the British Museum we 
learn that the schoolmasters of Egypt did the. same thing in 
much the same way before the time of Abraham. It is the 
assumption that this marking somehow increases the pupils' 
abilities and directs the teaching process. But the work of 
a tired mind is necessarily perfunctory. When one is weary 
and correcting papers has become a bore, genuine judgments 
as to the needs and progress of the writers is impossible, 
and the marking degenerates into the mere indicating of 
the more glaring and obvious errors — the " inexcusables." 

2 39 



240 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Rarely indeed does such marking suggest improvements in 
one's mode of instructing or leave one in a sufficiently vigo- 
rous or interested mental condition to plan them. In order 
to require enough written work to afford adequate training 
for a class of thirty or forty, the teacher attempts to do 
more of this sort of correcting than it is humanly possible 
to do and keep himself fit even to do the correcting with 
discretion, to say nothing of an intelligent study of the 
work graded or attention to the many other out-of-school 
duties of a teacher. The grinding drudgery of marking 
papers often precludes the physical recreation, the social 
relaxation, and the professional and general reading neces- 
sary to growing efficiency. 

Marking papers fails of its purpose. Only a powerful 
sense of duty could drive a teacher to this slavish work of 
endlessly marking papers. One must feel that it contributes 
tremendously to the pupils' good. But what, in fact, is the 
benefit that the pupil derives from it? Not uncommonly 
when the paper is returned to him he merely glances at the 
grade "given" him and drops the paper in the waste basket 
or stuffs it in his desk — to await the cleaning day. If he 
is required to correct the errors marked, he probably does 
so in a mechanical fashion, only to repeat, the same blunders 
in his next exercise. Even these are not corrected unless 
the overburdened teacher still further loads himself with 
the yet worse drudgery of re-reading the papers. Of all the 
dead-level work of the school, perhaps that which leaves 
the least permanent impression on the mind of a pupil is 
the correction of his written work as ordinarily done by 
his teacher. 

Eliminating needless mistakes. The first step in elimi- 
nating this drudgery is to stop the endless repetition of 
the same mistakes. Errors 'in spelling common words, in 
the fundamental arithmetic combinations, in capitalization, 



MARKING EXERCISES 241 

ordinary punctuation, indentation of paragraphs, and the 
formation of letters, — ■ any definite things that have been 
fully taught and are got wrong only through sheer careless- 
ness, — such errors should not be tolerated. To correct 
them over and over is to encourage a child in confusing 
and unlearning what he has painfully learned, in slipping 
back where he has laboriously climbed up, in doing wrong 
what he can do right. It were better that he should not 
be permitted to write than that he should repeatedly write 
the same mistakes for the teacher to correct. The pupil 
must feel a responsibility for the knowledge which he has. 
He has no right to expect further instruction so long as he 
fails to make use of present attainments. Absolute refusal 
by the teacher to consider any paper marred by these inex- 
cusable mistakes will soon develop in the pupil a habit of 
criticizing his own work before handing it in, of making 
sure that he is right as he goes along. No new lesson can 
be so important as the using of the old. 

Application of the taboo. The list of " inexcusables " 
described in another chapter has been found a most effec- 
tive means to this end. When pupils fully realize that 
carelessness, instead of relieving them from a moment's 
effort and care, enormously increases their immediate labor, 
unnecessary mistakes will largely disappear. With the 
elimination of carelessness will come the elimination of 
mere drudgery in correcting. Then the attention of teacher 
and pupils may be centered upon the new problem of the 
lesson, on which the paper is intended to afford exercise. 

Values of grading by pupils. It is this new problem 
upon which the whole class needs all the training practi- 
cable and upon which the mind should be focused in both 
writing and judging the paper. For the teacher to do the 
marking is to deprive the pupils of the most effective form 
of training:. That inestimable socializing value which comes 



242 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

from each pupil's measuring himself critically against his 
fellows, testing himself by the standard of his peers, see- 
ing himself in the light of their attainments — this is at its 
best when one is critically examining the papers prepared 
by his classmates. An attitude of critical, independent judg- 
ment and a full-rounded, many-sided view of a problem is 
attained in no way better than in judging numerous success- 
ful and unsuccessful efforts at its solution. Why deprive 
the pupils of these supreme educative opportunities ? 

Values of grading to the graders. Are there rapid pupils 
in need of " busy work " to occupy spare moments ? What 
better employment than judging the papers of the class ? 
Are there slow pupils whose mastery of the problem is 
still imperfect ? What better drill is possible than the 
grading of the same problem in a dozen to forty papers ? 
What finer motivation for getting that question clear in 
mind and knowing that it is clear ? Are there careless 
ones ? How better motivate thoroughness than by having 
them mark the papers of the others, knowing that each 
mark will be jealously scrutinized by the author ? 

Values of grading to the writers. It is in this fact, that 
grading by one's peers is challenged, that its greatest value 
lies*' The teacher's marks are accepted as a matter of course, 
and the incident is regarded as closed as soon as one finds 
" how much he gave me on it." Nothing more effectually 
stops the thinking process than the teacher's authoritative 
approval or disapproval of an answer in oral or written 
recitation. Nothing more effectively sustains and projects 
the mental activity than criticism by a member of the class. 
Fortunate, indeed, that mistakes may occur in the pupils' 
grading. 

An illustration. An instructive incident came to the 
writer's attention in a school where this plan of grading 
by pupils was in use. V. was a recognized leader in a 



MARKING EXERCISES 243 

seventh-grade arithmetic class. He was rather more brilliant 
than painstaking. On this occasion the papers of the whole 
class had been given him to grade. By merest chance he 
had misread one of the problems and graded every paper 
incorrect which did not contain the same mistake that he 
had made. The papers were returned to the class without 
comment by the teacher. As always, every mark was 
eagerly scrutinized by the author of each paper. Immedi- 
ately a storm of indignation arose. Under the restrictions 
of parliamentary procedure the aggrieved ones were given 
an opportunity to state their case, and V. and those who 
agreed with him, to answer. Then each side was required 
to prove its position to the satisfaction of the class. The 
next few minutes developed some of the clearest arith- 
metical analyses and keenest debating ever attained in the 
school. The principles of that problem were learned, 
never to be forgotten, and V. had a remarkably effective 
lesson of the kind he most needed. The teacher merely 
presided, keeping everyone courteous and good-natured. 

Some misconceptions. The pupil-grading plan was once 
recommended to a meeting of teachers, and later one of 
them reported that he had tried and abandoned it " because 
the parents complained that it was making the smart pupils 
snobbish ! " He had missed the whole point. A constant 
change of those who do the grading is essential, and there 
is less occasion for calling on the best pupils for this work 
than for calling on the slower ones. Another teacher found 
that certain chums and cliques were grading each other too 
high ! He, too, caught only half the idea. Getting marks 
for record is but an incidental aim in grading. Interest in 
improving abilities should destroy all motive for deception, 
while the constant oversight of the teacher and the constant 
changing of the graders should make partiality impossible. 
Ordinarily the pupil doing the grading places his name 



244 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

on the paper, and failure ' to mark a mistake is not only 
more serious than making the mistake in the first place 
but subjects the careless or unfair marker to the constant 
special watchfulness of the teacher. In the writer's own 
experience in revising grades made by students he has had 
occasion to raise the marks quite as often as to lower them. 

Variations. Many variations of the grading plan may 
be devised : 

i. One pupil may grade all the papers for the class, 
taking one or more evenings or study hours for the pur- 
pose. This would ordinarily be a pupil who has more 
spare time at his disposal than others or else one having 
special need of practice on the particular problem of the 
paper. 

2. The lot may be given to a group to work on collec- 
tively with full opportunity for conference and discussion. 
These may be temporary groups for the purpose, or one 
permanent class group may grade the papers of another 
group. An advanced group may well review by means of 
grading of papers for a lower group. Rival groups may 
exchange papers, or rooms or schools may exchange. 

3. The papers may be distributed among several pupils, 
no one having enough to interfere with his regular tasks. 

4. A most expeditious method is to have the papers 
passed, one, two, or three steps to the right ; to the left ; 
backward or forward ; or exchanged by rows in all possible 
permutations. Under the precision of well-ordered routine 
the passing and return of papers takes but an instant. By 
constantly varying the order of exchange there is always a 
new interest and a new social value in getting a paper to 
judge. The essentials of the lesson are then reviewed 
under the lead of the teacher or, better, of one pupil or 
several of them in turn, and each paper is marked. At 
a signal, papers are returned with routine promptness. 



MARKING EXERCISES 245 

Each pupil then reviews his own paper and indicates his ac- 
ceptance or definite exceptions. They are then passed up in 
order to the teacher. Each pupil has been over the points 
of the exercise three times ; once in preparing it, once in 
judging another paper, and finally in reviewing his own — at 
least so far as his mistakes made it desirable that he should. 

Makes for economy and definiteness. A moment's 
thought will demonstrate that reviews, drills, and textbook 
recitations can be far more rapidly and thoroughly con- 
ducted in this manner than by any form of oral recitation, 
provided the point to each question is very definite and 
clear. Questions must be asked so that only one answer 
can be correct and the essential part of that answer can be so 
precisely stated that every pupil can know positively whether 
an answer is correct or incorrect. Not that the answer 
must be in certain words, but that the exact thought must 
be clearly expressed. 

The reflex effect upon the teacher of thus making his 
instruction definite and of having definite evidence of 
results is obvious. The . papers also afford a most con- 
venient means of checking the progress of a grade and of 
comparing grade with grade. These values should make 
this plan of pupil grading popular with supervising officials. 

Exact grades required. The grades given by pupils should 
be indicated precisely on each question or point separately, 
to insure care and to facilitate ready review by the author 
and by the teacher. Symbols may be used likewise to indi- 
cate errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the like. 
The grader should be held rigidly accountable for the 
thoroughness and accuracy of his grading. The author 
should have the inalienable right of appeal on any correc- 
tion or valuation of his work. This appeal should ordinarily 
be . referred to the class rather than to the teacher's fiat 
for decision. 



246 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Value in questions of taste. In matters of opinion or 
taste, as in literary style, ethical judgments, and other 
matters not susceptible of ready demonstration or positive 
conclusion, there are even greater educative values in grad- 
ing by pupils. In such questions the grader should express 
his criticism concisely in words and be prepared to defend 
his position. If the author does not accept the criticism, 
it is a point on which the judgment of the class will doubt- 
less need developing. It is then brought up in class for 
discussion, the parties to the disagreement leading the 
argument and being supported by all who have opinions 
to offer on the subject. The debate is kept within parlia- 
mentary limitations by the teacher, who acts as presiding 
official. If there is a tendency to ramble and repeat, each 
side may be required to reduce its points to writing on 
the board, where all may see. If there is a contradiction 
as to facts, authorities should be demanded of both. As 
long as there is real difference of opinion, the question 
is well worthy of being held over from day to day, while 
materials are being gathered and prepared for presentation. 
The curriculum can contain no lessons of greater educative 
value than genuinely motivated discussions of this sort. 
Whenever the teacher injects an authoritative decision, the 
whole matter drops "with a dull and sickening thud." 
It is not the co7iclusion but the genuine discussion that 
is of value. Nevertheless, the whole discussion must be 
a search for truth and light. Whenever the class is con- 
vinced that one pupil is protracting an argument through 
mere stubbornness, it should have the right to vote to 
table the question or to register a decision. Pupils should 
soon learn from the social pressure of the class that true 
debating is not seeking unfair means of getting decisions 
but is a genuine search for truth and quick admission of 
error when found. 



MARKING EXERCISES 247 

Questions susceptible of ready verification by the indi- 
vidual pupil would, of course, not be permitted to occupy 
the time of the whole class. Teachers who think this a 
slow or cumbersome method of getting papers graded should 
remember that there is no educative value in merely getting 
t/ie papers marked; that pupils' judgment is developed by 
their own judging^ not by being judged by a teaelicr. 

The teacher's study and marking of the papers. The 
teacher will ordinarily take up the papers after the writers 
of them have scrutinized the grading and indicated their 
agreement or disagreement. He may then read all the 
papers or none as may seem necessary, and record what- 
ever marks may be desirable. Usually he will select a few 
of the poorest to study the individual needs of the writers, 
and some medium and some of the best from which to 
study the needs of the class as a whole. Thus he guides 
his further .procedure in his teaching. He may direct his 
entire attention to some particular problem or aspect of the 
work to determine the cause of some weakness in his teach- 
ing. One soon learns that there are some pupils who need 
close watching either in their writing or their grading, and 
their work is selected with sufficient regularity to spur them 
to the greatest care. Other papers one selects to check 
on some individual instruction which has been given. Still 
other papers are picked out from the pile for the sheer joy 
of reading a good paper and watching the glorious unfolding 
of capacities in a promising pupil. Obviously those selected 
for study will vary from day to day as may be most helpful 
in checking up one's daily progress notes and clearing his 
mind as to his teaching problems. 

Sometimes the teacher will return to the pupils only those 
papers on which he has made comments, sometimes he will 
return all of them, and sometimes none at all. It is best 
that papers should come back to the pupil only when they 



248 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

will be received and studied eagerly. If they are destined 
to go unheeded to the wastebasket, let the teacher put them 
there. Notebooks and many important papers should be kept 
permanently by the pupil for future reference or comparison. 
Instructive comments. The teacher's comments on the 
papers should not be in symbols or grades ; they should be 
personal and broad. He judges the pupil, not the paper. 
Formality in his grading should be taboo and routine 
marking abhorred. The following teachers' comments are 
quoted at random : 

Your penmanship is getting careless at times. You must 
improve or return to the drill class. Do your best on every paper 
and you will not need the writing drill. 

Too many words here that add nothing to the meaning. Note 
those I have underlined. Rewrite the page in the fewest words that 
will express your exact meaning and hand in with this to-morrow. 

A paper as neat as this is something to be proud of. Show it 
to your parents and keep it as a model. 

It is a pleasure to note the rapid improvement you are making 
in the clearness and force of your statements. Make every paper 
the best you can, and that best will soon become easy. 

Look up exact meaning of words I have double-underlined. 
Can you find others which express your meaning more precisely ? 
Can you defend by actual instances the statements of your second 
paragraph ? 

There is no drudgery in marking papers in this manner. 
There is no monotony, no weary driving when one is tired 
and unfit to judge. In fact, there is very little in all school 
life of more interest and greater educative efficiency than 
marking papers and studying the progress of class and 
individuals from day to day. Such a change from routine 
grind to appreciative judging and planning lifts the work 
from pedagogical ditch-digging to expert professional thinking 
on the highest plane. 



MARKING EXERCISES 249 

PROBLEMS 

1. Taking several sets of exercises at random from differ- 
ent grades or classes, classify all errors as "excusable" and 
" inexcusable." 

2. Write a summary of the effects of permitting children to 
hand in papers containing errors which they themselves might 
have corrected. 

3. Write a summary of the advantages of the correcting of 
papers by pupils; (a) to the writers of the papers; (/>) to the 
critics ; (c) to the teacher. 

4. What objections are there to a teacher's purposely making 
errors in his corrections as a means of challenging the watchful- 
ness of the pupils ? 

5. Watch carefully and make a precise statement of the reac- 
tions of children when a set of papers marked by a teacher are 
returned. 

6. Make a similar study of the reactions when papers graded 
by other children are returned. 

7. Make broad, constructive criticisms on a few typical written 
exercises and study the probable effect of the criticisms on the 
pupils' work. 

8. Write out all objections which occur to you to this plan of 
pupil grading. Study the objections to see (a) if they are valid; 
(b) by what adjustment the objections may be avoided and the 
advantages retained. 

READINGS 

Carpenter, Baker, and Scott. The Teaching of English, chap, vii, 

pp. 142, 242. 
Kennedy. Fundamentals in Methods, p. 138. 
Kendall and Mirick. How to Teach the Fundamental Subjects, 

pp. 95-100. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 

Motives defined. No work in the physical world or the 
mental goes on without motive power. All activity is but 
the discharge of energy. Energy drives the train along 
the track or piles up destruction in the wreck ; blasts a 
tunnel through a mountain or a hole through a battleship ; 
plans a crime, writes a book, or utters a prayer. Every 
activity of a pupil, good or bad, is fundamentally a discharge 
of energy. The child is primarily a dynamo, a mechanism 
for bringing forces to school and releasing them. He comes 
supplied with all the motive power necessary to make the 
school work go. The teacher has no need to concern him- 
self with a problem of " supplying motives " if by motives 
we mean the forces which drive. 

Motives, in this sense, are impulses incessantly impelling 
the child to activity. They are not matters of theory, of 
pedagogical ideals, of method, or of organization. They 
are not incentives, which are external stimuli, as shown 
later. They are facts, dominant facts of child life, present 
and potent, whether we will or not, whether we recognize 
them or not. They are neither good nor bad. Like electricity 
or dynamite, they are forces having no moral character in 
themselves but capable of limitless good or bad, according 
as they are directed in harmony with or in antagonism to 
the interests of society. All motives are subjective, internal, 
and natural. 

Classification. The motives, then, with which the school 
has to deal are all the instinctive tendencies of childhood 

250 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 251 

with all their variations and modifications acquired through 
experience. They diverge, converge, overlap, and inter- 
mingle endlessly. In truth, they are not different forces 
but different aspects or manifestations of the same infinitely 
complex driving force, of vital energy, — of life. The child 
that is " full of life " is full of motives and full of activity. 
No classification of these aspects of life energy, of these 
impulses, can be final or correct to the exclusion of any 
other. Any inherited tendency which can be discovered 
with sufficient distinctness to be named is an instinct. Simi- 
larly, any attitude, habit, interest, or other acquired tendency 
which is effective for directing or arousing conduct of any 
sort may be regarded as an impulse or motive, and any listing 
of such tendencies which serves a useful purpose is legitimate. 

The following classification of motives will serve for the 
present discussion to point out those aspects of child energy 
with which we are particularly concerned. 

I. Individualistic or Self-Seeking Tendencies 

1. Virility — aspiration to "be a man," to be big or su- 
perior ; and its counterpart, femininity — to be attractive, 
admired, and womanly ; self-esteem. 

2. Obedience or submission to guidance and protection, 
changing, especially at adolescence, to self-reliance and 
independence. 

3. Self-assertion, combativeness, insistence on " rights." 

4. Greed, acquisitiveness, ownership. 

5. Pride, envy, and jealousy. 

6. Partiality for one's own, — as one's parents, family, 
friends, and possessions. 

All these are more or less modified by and are even 
dependent on the following : 



252 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

II. Social or Group-Serving Tendencies 

i. Fear of disapproval of others. 

2. Desire for the approval of others, especially of one's 
peers. 

3. Cooperative impulse, seeking mutual welfare. 

4. Spirit of service, complete unselfishness. 

III. Tendencies which Motivate School Work 
Directly 

1 . Love of mental activity ; of sensory experiences, im- 
agery, of rational and emotional processes of every kind. 

(a) Interest in any situation which appeals to one as a 
problem of significance ; curiosity, experimentation, puzzle- 
solving. 

(b) Interest in the new, unusual, vivid, striking. 

(e) Interest in human beings — their doings, history, cus- 
toms, emotions — and in personified things. 

(d) Tendency to organize ideas, form concepts, classify, 
systematize. 

(e) Love of emotional excitement, whether occasion be 
joyous, exalting, sad, horrible. 

2. Love of physical activity. 

(a) Play, dramatization, impersonations, etc. 

(b) Constructiveness, love of achievement, attainment, 
accomplishment, overcoming difficulties. 

(c) Restlessness, organic need for much bodily move- 
ment, physical energy, vigor. 

3. {a) Tendency to imitate certain observed or suggested 
movements, expressions, thought processes, and emotional 
attitudes. 

(b) Tendency to repeat acts and experiences which are 
agreeable. 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 253 

IV. ./Esthetic, Ethical and Religious 

1. Love of beauty, harmony, rhythm, rhyme, etc. 

2. Moral impulses, love of doing right, conseience. 

3. Admiration for moral qualities in others. 

4. Reverence, worship, religious aspiration and exaltation. 
All these are teaching resources, ready for use or easily 

aroused. They are the springs of action which the teacher 
must direct if he would govern or teach. According as it 
is directed the same impulse may impel the child to the 
most virtuous conduct or to the most vicious. The same 
innate motives may drive him successfully through all the 
tasks of school years or they may drive him out of school. 

The child is a social being. Both pedagogical discussions 
and school practice have usually assumed that the efficient 
forces of child life are individualistic, such as are named in 
our group I, or even more primitive and animal-like impulses 
than these. The truth is that the impulses of our second 
group will completely overshadow and smother out those 
of the self-seeking sort if given a reasonable chance. 

Interested in school work directly. Quite as blind as the 
failure to recognize the social motive in children has been 
the oversight of the fact that children normally do love 
well-adapted school work for its own sake. While much of 
our arbitrary and abstract subject matter and much of our 
unnatural methods of teaching are indeed distasteful, no 
one who has studied children actually at work in a modern 
well-taught elementary school can doubt that such interests 
as we have listed in the third group are present and active 
in the great majority of the children most of the time. 
The children commonly do not work because of any extra- 
neous incentive whatever. They work because the task is 
pleasant in itself and is the strongest immediate interest. 
These tendencies may indeed be starved or perverted, or 



254 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

they may be discouraged by disagreeable effects following 
early efforts at expression in school, such as being required 
to " speak up " when they have nothing to say or " shut 
up " when they want to say something, but they are none 
the less real and efficient if wisely managed. As further 
discussion of this matter would intrude upon the premises 
of teaching methods, we shall turn to the social motive and 
attempt to establish its validity as a basis of government. 

Normal motives social and mixed. In very young chil- 
dren, in those of abnormally low intellect, and in any per- 
son under stress of passion or of physical needs, simple, 
primitive, and individualistic impulses ordinarily dominate. 
But civilized persons in normal activities are governed by 
impulses more or less mixed or blended and mainly social. 
We are first of all members of society. . Even our most 
selfish aims in the business of life seek for us social pleasures, 
popular approval, and distinction in the eyes of the public. 
Our means of attaining these social ends are likewise fixed 
by society rather than by ourselves. Our labor is done to 
satisfy some need of the social organism, and we are paid 
for our efforts by society at a valuation fixed by itself and 
in coin of its own determining. 

Forms and evidences of social control. The fear of disap- 
proval manifests itself with the first " self-consciousness." 
No fear of physical punishment is more keen than the 
dread of ridicule, of being called " fraidy-cat " or "sissy" ; 
of being forced to wear curls or kilts after one's fellows 
think they should be discarded, or a style of dress that 
" nobody 's wearing now." This fear of the disapproval of 
one's peers is what makes effective " the rules of the game," 
whether of " I spy," football, poker, or stock speculation. It 
selects our clothing, our automobiles, and our college ; it de- 
termines the choice of our words, the steps of our dances, 
and almost the last detail of our work and of our recreation. 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 255 

On the positive side, the love of social approval is the 
force which drives the wheels of the world's work — except, 
as has been said, under pressure of strong emotion or phys- 
ical want. It is the heart of all social, literary, financial, 
and political ambition. It is the essence of leadership and 
of competitive activity. The fear of disapproval prevents 
wrongdoing ; the love of approval wins victories. The one 
restrains within the bonds of propriety ; the other impels to 
achievement. Together they give morality and efficiency ; 
they make one's very selfishness social. 

Self-interest is more completely socialized when society 
is no longer regarded as a sort of external and antagonistic 
alter ego, hedging individualistic impulses, but has become 
thoroughly identified in interests with the narrower self. 
When the individual is so merged into the group that he 
finds his pleasure and profit in its gains and his griefs in 
its misfortunes, he has attained tlic cooperative stage. This 
" enlightened selfishness " means genuine teamwork without 
the grand-stand plays. It is the bond of the much-discussed 
"gang spirit" of adolescent boys. It is the substance of 
the Boy-Scout movement. It will lead a boy to submit 
to any suffering rather than " peach on the gang." It will 
cause him joyfully to endure unlimited severity and monotony 
of training before a football contest and the most painful 
bruises and fractures in the course of the game — all for 
the success of the team. Later in life his partnerships, 
his church, his secret orders, are manifestations of the same 
impulse, but it is never stronger or more faithful than 
in adolescence. 

Yet more exalted is the unselfish spirit of scr-eicc. Here 
primitive individualism has wholly abdicated to the social 
impulse. Little children love to give their pennies to the 
far away heathen with no thought of return. They are hap- 
piest in doing acts of unmixed affection. To be sure, their 



256 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

impulses, social and individual alike, are objective and fleet- 
ing, and they are lacking in a fixity of purpose that only 
experience and developed mentality can establish, but it is 
slander to assert that their motives are not often as purely 
unselfish and generous as the best of our own. It is a sad 
mistake to insist upon intruding a material and selfish re- 
ward upon the child when his good deed is its own suf- 
ficient reward. In adolescence this spirit of service is in its 
most beautiful flower. Then are lives freely dedicated to social, 
religious, or other unselfish causes. The price of personal 
sacrifice is rather an added incentive than a deterrent. 

Multiple social groups. Parallel with the varying degrees 
in which the self is merged into society, we should note the 
different groups which call forth the social response. There 
may be several of these simultaneously without necessary 
conflict. A man may be a devoted member of his church, 
his firm, his political party, and his various fraternal organ- 
izations without inconsistency. Only when his groups con- 
flict with each other must he choose between them. So a 
boy may be loyal to his family, his class, his school, his 
gang, his team, and his fraternity. That in his loyalty he 
should occasionally adhere to the gang in preference to the 
school is due to two facts : first, that there is antagonism 
between the two ; and second, that the gang is more in ac- 
cord with his nature. The antagonism may be due in part 
to evil tendencies in the gang, but the gang's hold upon him 
is due to its essential boyishness. The former is incidental, 
the latter is fundamental. The evil may be eliminated from 
the gang, and the boyishness may be brought into the 
school activities. 

Sympathy limited by knowledge. The range of one's 
social sympathy is measured by the breadth of his knowledge 
and experience. Travel is the cure for sectionalism, and 
knowledge for narrow prejudice. The same social impulse 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 257 

may develop into a neighborhood feud, state loyalty, national 
patriotism, or service to mankind. Partisan prejudice is the 
signpost of the limit of one's knowledge. A chief responsi- 
bility of the schools which society maintains is to broaden the 
pupil's sympathies and to quicken his social consciousness. 

Success of socialized school work. There are available 
many interesting detailed accounts of the socialization of 
work and play in school. In such works as the Year Books 
of the Francis W. Parker School and in Scott's " Social 
Education," Dewey's " Schools of To-morrow," and in other 
books and periodicals, we have a revelation of the springs of 
efficient and happy learning that makes one wonder whether 
our whole traditional system of organization and studies is not 
a grotesque blunder. Children have struggled so laboriously 
and uninspiringly for pitifully meager results, while the pupils 
of those radical schools seem to be playing their way into 
rich experiences and large abilities. But we must forego the 
temptation to introduce descriptions of these striking types 
of the socialized school. We are concerned rather with that 
more conservative use of the social motives which may be 
applied by any teacher in any school with any schedule or 
course of study. We must meet the teacher's chronic ex- 
cuse — " no time for that sort of thing " — and the superin- 
tendent's confidential complaint — "no teachers capable of 
that sort of thing." Still it is true that the right sort of will 
has always managed to find some sort of way, and superior 
wills rather than superior means have accomplished all that 
has been done. 

Methods of using the social motive. The key to social 
motivation is group cooperation in the solution of genuine 
problems. In discussing the organization of the school, the 
establishing of routine, the grading of exercises, and else- 
where, we have found that this key opens the door to both 
simplicity of government and increase of educative values. 



258 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Practically, if not fundamentally, every problem of the course 
of study through which the child must work his way is a 
genuine problem for his solution. Its introduction into the 
course may have been arbitrary and unnatural, but it is none 
the less his problem if it is there. Therefore, without ven- 
turing into that attractive wilderness of selecting a content 
which will be self-motivating, we may consider the motivation 
of the traditional school tasks. 

Group competition. It is noticeable in school fairs and 
exhibitions that almost any child is more intensely interested 
in the contests of his class or his school than he is in those 
in which he is an individual contestant. Few children are 
more anxious to see their own names on the honor roll than 
they are to have their class win a competitive distinction. 
A manual-training or map-making project or study of some 
practical local problem by a group arouses far more interest 
and activity than solitary efforts of the same sort. Each 
pupil gathers enthusiasm, knowledge, and lasting impressions 
from all, and all from each. Only let each pupil recognize 
that his personal problem is to attain a certain ability rather 
than to '• get over the lesson," and instead of our demanding 
that each get up the lesson without help we shall soon dis- 
cover that self-organized cooperative study is best for both 
weak and strong and is more truly educative than a large 
proportion of the recitations that teachers conduct. 

Contributions to the class group in " content " studies. 
Daily recitations particularly are suffering from lack of social 
motivation. In any " content subject " there is abundant 
opportunity for individuals to make genuine contributions 
to the knowledge of the class. Let each pupil offer to the 
class any interesting facts which he may have gathered in 
the library, at home, from his neighbors, from the teacher, 
or wherever he can. Let the class as well as the pupil know 
that this is their only instruction on these points and hold 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 259 

them responsible for it. The pupil is not assigned a topic 
on which he is to recite to the tcacJicr but one on which he 
is to find out what facts he can and get the class to know 
them. lie has a genuine audience to address and they a gen- 
uine necessity for listening. Together they are a genuine 
social organization for mutual progress. It is well for him 
to review and test the class on his topic. One who has not 
observed such a recitation cannot appreciate the increase of 
earnestness and intelligence of study, clearness of topical 
organization, forcefulness of expression, which result from 
this change of attitude among the pupils. Incidentally, far 
more material is presented and more active discussions are 
aroused. As these reports by pupils constitute the exposition 
and illustrations of the textbook skeleton of the lesson, the 
latter may be learned almost incidentally and needs but to 
be reviewed and properly emphasized by the teacher. Even 
this may be done by the pupils in more advanced classes. 
As in the plan for grading exercises, already discussed, there 
is an attitude of active challenge toward the work of a peer 
which is wholly lacking in the acceptance of authority from 
the teacher and text. By being held responsible for the 
knowledge of the class on his topic the pupil soon learns 
the value of defmiteness of viewpoint and clearness of pres- 
entation. Better language training can hardly be conceived. 
From primary pupils to college seniors such socialization of 
the study and recitation will prove effective if gradually and 
appropriately introduced — not "adopted" as a system. 

For best results pupils should have some choice in the 
selection of topics. The socialization may be still further 
accomplished by assigning occasional larger and more com- 
plex tasks to groups of pupils. Such groups should be largely 
self-organized and self-directed. If a genuine responsibility 
rests upon them, it will be found that they will soon bring 
pressure to bear upon the shirkers and in course of time 



260 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

will seek to drive out the drones from their busy hives. The 
teacher, of course, does not abandon them but constantly 
studies the working of any plan he uses and adjusts it to meet 
difficulties as they arise. _ 

In "form" studies. In formal subjects not only may the 
same plan be utilized for the solution of more difficult prob- 
lems, for bringing in practical problems from the home, farm, 
or shop, but there is a particularly happy opportunity in 
the eliminating of troublesome deficiencies. 

Remedying deficiencies. In every class there are individuals 
deficient in particular abilities — in spelling, multiplication, 
writing, or other capacity. If the teacher has interpreted 
the course of study into abilities to be attained rather than 
ground to be covered, as we have elsewhere outlined, and the 
particular ability demanded of the grade has been made en- 
tirely clear to the pupils themselves ; if they have been shown 
how vitally that ability will enter into all their subsequent 
work, how the lack of it will increase their labor and retard 
their progress at every point, — they will welcome the sugges- 
tion of a voluntary " multiplication club," "spelling club," or 
a " penmanship-improvement association." These are social 
groups in the best sense, self-organized, self-directed, seek- 
ing to meet a very genuine and pressing need. Their mutual 
stimulation and helpfulness accomplish results in weeding 
out deficiencies as the solitary drilling of a deficient and dis- 
couraged individual cannot hope to do. Every teacher knows 
that he who is asking the questions is commonly getting 
better drill than one who is answering them. Most mere drill 
work can be conducted by pupils as well as by the teacher, 
and often by a deficient pupil with maximum total values. 

Group self -correction. An excellent plan for social co- 
operation of a different sort in eliminating common errors 
of speech is described by Kendall and Mirick. 1 A teacher 

1 How to Teach the Fundamental Subjects, p. 63. 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 261 

was asked to prepare a list of such errors made by her class. 
In the true social spirit she asked the children to help. For 
two weeks each child was a detective, listing every error he 
heard in or around the school. These lists were classified, 
ami correct forms were put on the board and drilled upon. 
Then each child became a policeman to enforce the laws of 
good usage. Then competitive groups in correct speech were 
organized on the pupils' initiative and daily bulletins posted. 
" Thus by the end of about five weeks these pupils had be- 
come thoroughly alive to the values in words and sentences, 
and the teacher very wisely dropped this particular feature 
of language training before interest flagged, transferring the 
interest to the composition lessons." Note that last statement. 

The success of such socialized incentives will depend 
largely on the teacher's knowing how to suggest rather 
than direct, to hint rather than tell, to respond to calls for 
guidance rather than intrude plans, and in knowing when to 
turn flagging attention to a new task or to a new means 
of attack on the same problem. 

Social shortcomings of family and school. In summary, 
we may assert unqualifiedly that school children are pri- 
marily social beings ; that social impulses are not only 
present and competent to direct school work and conduct, 
but that these forces are the dominant ones. Only the 
failure of family and school government to adapt them- 
selves to this supreme fact of child nature can account for 
the widely prevailing idea and oft-repeated statement that 
children are fundamentally selfish and nonsocial. Their 
inferiority to adults in the social spirit, if it is true at all, 
is merely in the lack of experience, of a background of 
habits and farseeing purposes — deficiencies which charac- 
terize all their other impulses as well and which it is the 
responsibility of the educative process itself to correct. 
Nevertheless, as Irving King has put it, 



262 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The school has tended to deal with its children as individuals, 
when they are in reality social beings. It has tried to train them 
as individuals in the virtues of truthfulness, justice, loyalty, fair 
play, and lawfulness. As abstract statements these mean nothing 
to the children, but, when illustrated by the intimate associations 
of the playground, gang, club, or school itself, they stand out with 
convincing force. 1 

Principles of motivation. A few guiding principles which 
will aid in determining the choice of motives may be 
given : 

1. No motive is good unless it motivates. It is the 
softest of "soft pedagogy" to allow a duty to remain 
undone because an appeal to a lofty motive brings no 
response. 

2. Tendencies strengthen by their exercise. Of several 
impulses, give practice to the one that needs to be devel- 
oped rather than to one that is already objectionably con- 
spicuous ; for example, arouse the courage of the timid child 
and the modesty of the brazen one. 

3. Arouse higher motives in preference to lozver. The 
latter are primitive, deep-rooted in our subhuman anteced- 
ents, always present, easily actuated, and will take care of 
themselves. The former are efficient but easily displaced 
and need development. Do not permit a child to perform 
a task through selfish rivalry which he will do through 
cooperation or aesthetic interest. 

4. Higher motives must grow, slowly, through long exer- 
cise, nourishment, and encouragement. They cannot be 
taught or given, nor can they grow through neglect or 
disparagement. Because a child "lacks a sense of honor" 
is reason enough for trusting him as much as possible. 
Through little victories only does he gain strength for 
bigger ones. 

1 Education for Social Efficiency, p. 145. 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 263 

5. Make permanent rather than temporary connections. 
With a given sort of activity seek to connect the impulse 
which should always motivate it. Composition work should 
be done through a genuine desire to express thought, and 
the study of literature through a love of its beauty, and its 
dramatic interest. These should not be unnecessarily sup- 
planted by a temporary rivalry for grades nor by a group 
incentive. 

6. Ideally, each task should set off its appropriate motive 
directly. In Nature's education this is true, and it would 
be true in an ideal curriculum taught with ideal methods. 
This is the ultimate standard of economy and efficiency. 
Students of childhood are coming surely to agreement on 
the conclusion that any activity so foreign to the native 
impulses of the child that it cannot directly stimulate an 
effective motivation is by that fact not adapted to the stage 
of the child's development. Intellectual tastes, like tastes 
gastronomic, are normally good indices of one's real needs, 
but both are easily perverted. Motives thus directly called 
forth by the work itself, instead of by a mediating incentive, 
are reasonably sure to be wholesome and well adapted. 

Meaning of incentive. Restricting the use of motive, as 
we have, to its original and principal meaning, we shall 
likewise use incentive in its original sense as " that which 
strikes up the tune," sets off the activity, stirs up or incites 
the motive to action. The motive is the driving force ; the 
incentive is the device which couples it to the task to be 
performed. This distinction kept clearly in mind would 
help to clear up much current confusion in technical dis- 
cussions as well as in practice. 1 

1 A careful comparison of the uses of the terms motive and incentive 
among writers on education shows a serious lack of agreement. Popularly 
and in most books they are used interchangeably, while works on school 
management have generally made the word incentives cover, with various 
differences, the whole field discussed in this chapter. White distinctly 



264 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Use of incentives. The common error of the unscientific 
teacher is to assume that the incentive affects the con- 
duct directly. He is content to measure the efficacy of a 
prize by the number or quality of essays written for it, 
oblivious whether the motive aroused was greed, rivalry, 
class spirit, or love of expression ; whether the winner in- 
creased more in pride of conquest than in literary interest ; 
whether the result is more or less of permanent tendency 
to give literary expression to one's ideas. 

Where there is a child there are motives in abundance. 
Where there is a school there are tasks to be done. Idle- 
ness and retardation are the results of tasks nonmotivated. 
Mischief and disorder are due to motives without tasks. 
School government and teaching is the business of connect- 
ing child-motives to educative tasks, finding a safe outlet 
for the one and an effective force for the other. 

Incentives are all the devices known to teachers for 
making these necessary connections. They include marks, 
promotions, honor rolls, rewards, prizes, and punishments, — 
all schemes intended to bring school activity to the plane of 
genuine zuork by affording an aim outside of the process itself. 
They also include contests, games, dramatization, excursions, 

states that " the desires that thus incite or impel man to effort are called 
motives or incentives," with a note that incentive is used for either a 
desire or its object. Bagley, although criticizing White on the ground that 
the child must be educated "when he is unable to see very far ahead," 
defines incentive as " the idea of a remote end toward which effort is to 
be organized," and then speaks of pain stimuli as incentives. 

Neither White's classification of incentives as natural and artificial nor 
Bagley's as positive and negative will bear thorough analysis, nor does 
either prevent its author from bringing into his discussion incentives that 
are neither ideas nor desires nor the objects of desires. Both statements fail 
in detailed application and have led to much confusion on the part of 
numerous writers who have followed them. Similar difficulties are readily 
noted in Dutton, Salisbury, Colgrove, Arnold, and others. The distinctions 
in this chapter have proved useful in the author's own classes, but cannot 
be further defended in the space here available. 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 265 

and other devices seeking to make the process itself attractive 
and thus approximating the character of educative play. 
Even so, much of the pupil's daily work still remains on the 
plane of drudgery — disagreeable and unmotivated. 

Classification of incentives. Marks, passes, promotions, 
graduations, and degrees are expected to set off the motive 
forces of ambition and love of approbation. Their chief 
defect is that they commonly supplant the natural interest 
in school work and bring pupils to measure the worth of 
all efforts in percentages and credits. 

Honor rolls, distinctions, and other intangible individual 
rewards arouse rivalry or emulation. They are mainly anti- 
social and can ordinarily appeal to but the few who least 
need their stimulation, unless they are made so common as 
to be of little appeal to any. 

Tangible rewards and prizes have the same defects as 
the intangible and the further defect that they may appeal 
to selfish greed, jealousy, or baser motives and reactions. 

Commendation is a gentle, wholesome stimulus, with no 
bad effects if wisely given for effort, which the child con- 
trols, and not fornative ability, which is an hereditary gift. 
Censure is as depressing as commendation is bracing. 
Censure may serve as an effective restraint at times, but is 
not to be compared in efficiency with an effective redirection 
of the errant energy. 

All punishment is repressive and depressive. It is some- 
times discussed as the use of "negative incentives." 

Principles of incentives. We may sum up our viewpoint 
as to incentives in the following principles : 

1. The best use of incentives is their elimination. This 
is in the same sense that the highest service of the teacher 
is to make himself unnecessary. The term " natural incen- 
tives " is sometimes applied to this direct motivation of work. 
In our meaning of the term all incentives are " artificial." 



266 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

2. Give preference to the incentive which is temporary 
and easily effaced. Its function is to make the connection 
between motive and task, not to be the connection. 

3. No incentive is good in itself, it must be judged 
wholly by its effectiveness. 

4. Never permit the incentive to become the end and 
the educative process the means. A high-school pupil 
happy to throw aside forever his Shakespeare and history 
as soon as he secures his diploma is a shocking illustra- 
tion of the confusion of means and ends. Study is not a 
means to getting a diploma, but the diploma is a means 
to stimulating study. 

5. Avoid elaborate, complex incentives which divert atten- 
tion and energy from the work ; machinery which con- 
sumes the power. Such are most " systems " of marks and 
" merits " and the more cumbersome student-government 
organizations. 

6. Incentives derive their effectiveness from the social 
mind of the class. Promotions, distinctions, rewards, and 
punishments are effective in proportion as they are respected. 
A whipping may be a joke, a matter of pride, a chal- 
lenge to combat, or the deepest humiliation. Remaining 
after school to straighten up the room or to get a missed 
lesson may be regarded as a coveted privilege or a dreaded 
disgrace according to the associations established by class 
traditions. 

7. A given incentive may have entirely different effects 
on different pupils under the same circumstances or on the 
same pupils under different circumstances. Commonly there 
must be a differentiation by the teacher as to the application 
of the incentives among the pupils. 

It is the business of the teacher to oversee and foresee 
the operation of motives and so to manipulate incentives 
as to attain the most educative results. Not disciplining 



MOTIVES AND INCENTIVES 26J 

children nor transmitting knowledge is the business of 
teaching, but wisely choosing motives and "giving the tune" 
to each so as to bring them into one grand social and 
spiritual harmony. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Compare the distinction between motives and incentives as 
given in this chapter with those given or implied in other works. 

2. Compare the classification of motives with other lists of the 
sort. What aspects of impulse seem to be emphasized in each ? 

3. Observe individual children at work in school and out and 
try to determine what sort of interest or impulse is impelling in 
each case. Where you think the motives are mixed, seek to 
analyze them into as elementary factors as possible. 

4. Describe cases in which the teacher found it necessary to 
find some specific incentive for a particular task. What incentives 
were used ? What others in each case might have been used ? 

5. Find instances, if you can, of the use of incentives (a) which 
are not effective for the purposes intended ; (p) which tend to dis- 
tract the attention from the task or lesson to the incentive rather 
than to fix the attention directly on the lesson ; (c) which affect 
different children in different ways. 

6. Find instances (a) where you think a higher motive than 
the one used would have been as effective for the purpose ; 
(J>) where the motives used seem to be objectionable because of 
the traits of character they tend to develop ; (/) where the motives 
are themselves desirable but not as effective as they should be for 
the immediate purposes. 

7. Describe some cases in which the teacher has used some 
extraneous incentive to get the attention and interest of the chil- 
dren but presently the interest has passed over wholly into the 
work itself. 

8. Find as many different forms and applications as you can of 
the social motive in school work. 



268 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

READINGS 

Adams. Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education, chap. x. 

Bagley. Classroom Management, chap. xi. 

Bain. Education as a Science, pp. 60-1 20. 

Betts. The Mind and its Education, pp. 199, 234. 

Keith. Elementary Education, chaps, vi-vii. 

King. Education for Social Efficiency, chap. viii. 

Kirkpatrick. Fundamentals of Child-Study, chap. iv. 

O'Shea. Social Development and Education, chaps, i, xi, and xiii. 

Pearson. The Vitalized School, chap. xv. 

Scott. Social Education, chap. v. 

Sisson. Essentials of Character, chaps, i and viii. 

Strayer. A Brief Course in the Teaching Process, chap. ii. 

Thorndike. Educational Psychology (Briefer Course), Part I. 

White. School Management, pp. 105, 130. 

Wilson, H. B. and G. M. Motivation of School Work, Part I. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

PUNISHMENT 

Negative incentives. Disapproval, threats, and punish- 
ments are often called " negative incentives." Their pur- 
pose is not to arouse but to inhibit the functioning of 
some motive. Instead of "giving the tune" they put a 
quietus upon it. If education means the act of leading out, 
of unfolding, of developing, then negative incentives a prion 
are not educative. There is no growth through nonactivity, 
no education in stopping activity. Children do not learn by 
what they are prevented from doing nor by what is done to 
them. They learn only by their own actions and reactions. 
It is the reaction aroused that counts in the case of the nega- 
tive incentive. This is not always the sort that is assumed 
by the teacher. 

Punishment through the ages. From the dim dawn of 
Egyptian civilization comes the proverb, " A young fellow 
has a back ; he hears when we strike it." Among the earli- 
est Hebrew proverbs we have, " Foolishness is bound up in 
the heart of a child ; but the rod of correction shall drive it 
far from him." From those primitive days to the present, 
" practical teachers " and " strong disciplinarians " have been 
emphatic in precept and practice in making the rod the 
symbol of education. 

On the other hand, the greatest teachers and thinkers of 
all times — of Scripture, of literature, and of educational his- 
tory — have both practiced and advocated lenient methods. 
Not on account of some soft sentiment or fear of brutalizing 
the child have they taken this position, but because teaching 

269 



270 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

through punishment is hopelessly inefficient. Plato wrote : 
" No study pursued under compulsion remains rooted in the 
memory. Hence you must train children to their studies in a 
playful manner and without the air of restraint." Among the 
stern and harsh Romans, Martial, Cato, Cicero, and Seneca 
protest against the policy of ruling by the rod. Quintilian, 
the great Roman teacher and the only important writer of 
ancient times on practical school government, makes a most 
notable plea against severity in school discipline. Vittorino 
da Feltre (1 378-1446), the next teacher of children to rise 
to historical distinction, was renowned for his avoidance of 
physical punishment, for the self-government of his boys, 
and for a school spirit that caused his institution to be 
known as the " Pleasant House." La Salle's " Conduct of 
the Christian Schools' 1 ' (1720) gives elaborate rules for the 
infliction of penalties worked out in amusing detail. But in 
181 1 these Brethren of the Christian Schools considered 
prohibiting corporal punishment, and in 1870 Frere Philip 
said for them, " Imperative circumstances no longer permit 
us to tolerate corporal punishment in our schools." 

In modern times the list of those who denounce corporal 
punishment as a means to education is practically identical 
with the list of those who have contributed materially to 
educational progress. Meanwhile the tens of thousands of 
forgotten teachers have maintained the rule of the rod and 
the sway of the switch and have persisted in misquoting 
Scripture to the effect that sparing the rod per se spoils 
the child. 

Principles of punishment. We may organize our discussion 
of punishment into the following principles : 

1. Punishment primarily means to cause pain. This can 
have no value in itself and must be justified, if at all, on the 
ground of efficiency in obtaining conditions more favorable 
for educative work. 



PUNISHMENT 271 

2. Merc submission, sullen or servile, is not a condition 
favorable for educative work. It is more often wholly incom- 
patible with learning, and yet it is often mistaken for an 
indication of the efficacy of punishment inflicted. 

3. Punishment of school children cannot be justified on 
any theory of retribution. It is permissible only as it may 
deter the punished one or others from objectionable conduct 
and thus make desirable conduct possible. No pupil 
" deserves " anything at the. hands of his teacher except 
helpful encouragement and wise training. 

4. The best possible deterrent of wrong conduct is right 
conduct. No amount of punishment will prevent hands that 
are idle from doing the devil's work, and no amount of devil 
will get wholesomely busied hands into mischief. 

5. Punishment cannot in itself be an incentive or motiva- 
tion for mental work. The motivation is still to be accom- 
plished when the punishment has made conditions favorable 
for the work. 

6. Must promote affection. Punishment which brings the 
child and teacher into more sympathetic, friendly, and mu- 
tually trustful relations is good, regardless of its form or its 
severity. That punishment which ends in sullenness, resent- 
ment, lack of confidence in the teacher, a feeling of injustice 
or unwillingness to cooperate, has been a failure regardless 
of refinement or brutality. 

7. Radical as the statement may seem, the one test of 
successful punishment is that it meets the approval of the 
punished. Usually children may be brought to see the jus- 
tice of any right punishment before it is inflicted. They will 
even seek it through some innate sense of compensation. 
At any rate, the incident should not be considered closed 
until the corrected child has been drawn nearer to the 
teacher than ever before, until there is a closer heart to 
heart touch between them and more of mutual confidence, 



272 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

affection, and trust. Only then has punishment been effec- 
tive. Like a surgical operation, punishment is permissible 
only under pathological necessity and is to be judged by the 
subsequent health of the patient. The teacher who is con- 
tent to punish a child "because he needs it" and consider 
the correcting thus accomplished has even less excuse than 
a surgeon who would perform a serious operation and leave 
the patient to his own resources to recover from its effects. 
It is not an operation that the patient needs, but health, not 
punishment that the child is in need of, but right relations 
with the teacher and with his fellows. 

8. Punishment "as an example to the school " likewise 
can be measured only in terms of the permanent attitude 
of the children toward the teacher and toward their tasks. 
Immediate results are very deceptive. " Obedience," " sub- 
mission," and " maintaining authority " are likely to cover 
the children's retreat to subtler and meaner disobedience 
and defiance of authority. 

9. " Lightning principle." Punishment which must be 
constantly repeated to be effective, by that fact proves its in- 
efficiency. Work done under continuous or repeated compul- 
sion has slight educative value and engenders a repugnance 
which usually does more harm than the work does good. A 
small boy on being asked why lightning never strikes twice 
in the same place, replied, " It does n't have to." Effective 
punishment, likewise, doesn't have to strike repeatedly 
in the same place. Children do not respect the sort that 
does have to. Penalties lose their efficiency as they become 
common. When " nothing but a licking will control that 
boy," it is certain that the licking does not. 

10. Punishment arising from the teacher's temper, tem- 
perament, or nervousness, whatever the irritation or provoca- 
tion, or inflicted for any other reason than a sincere and 
sympathetic belief that the child or the school will be 



PUNISHMENT 273 

benefited thereby, is not a question of school management 
at all. Such punishment belongs in the same category and 
deserves the same consideration it would have if inflicted by 
the irate teacher upon a fellow teacher or other citizen 
outside of the schoolroom. Morally, psychologically, and 
legally, if only it were possible to prove it, such an act is 
neither more nor less than a crime. 

1 1 . Except for the criminal sort just mentioned, corporal 
punishment is not necessarily any more brutal or brutalizing 
than keeping-in, nagging, scolding, and many forms of the 
so-called " moral suasion." For small children particularly, 
physical pain is as prompt a corrective and open to as few 
real objections as any punishment that can be applied, pro- 
vided always that the spirit of it and the conclusion of it 
accord with the principles already stated. 

12. Last resort or first aid? Corporal punishment should 
never be regarded as a last resort — tradition to the contrary 
notwithstanding. It is so immediate and tangible that it is 
often the most effective and refined " first aid " to cure a 
child's sullen or intractable mood. A prompt and kindly 
switching, particularly by a mother or primary teacher, will 
often bring a little one to repentant tears and affectionate 
embraces in a few minutes, with no sting of humiliation and 
with no rebellious mood settled into a habit. A "spoiled 
child " may be brought to his senses, a mischievous con- 
spiracy nipped in the bud, or a " bully " posing before the 
class as superior to the rule of the school may have the 
tables turned on him by rapid-fire corporal correction. A 
child who knows that all other means of governing him have 
been tried and have failed and that mere brute force is 
the teacher's sole effective authority — the last resort — does 
not respect that government even though for the moment 
he may submit to it. He is being taught what all civiliza- 
tion is seeking to make untrue — that physical force makes 



274 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

ultimate right. Most assuredly he will exercise that right 
whenever and wherever he believes that he possesses it. 
When physical coercion is a last resort it is no resort for 
school use. The unhappy child who has been governed all 
his life by beatings, whose parents have found that " the 
only way to do anything with him is to whip him," is hope- 
lessly immune to educative benefits through physical com- 
pulsion. He, more than most children, is susceptible to the 
leading of genuine sympathy, appreciation, and trust. At 
any rate, nothing else can lead him. One who cannot reach 
such a child except through corporal punishment simply 
cannot reach him at all. 

Corporal punishment, like a powerful drug, is immediate 
and severe in its effects and for that reason must be used 
with particular discrimination. If used at all, it should be 
used promptly and thoroughly before the disease is compli- 
cated or aggravated. Continued use is the surest sign of 
misuse. Many school boards prohibit it entirely. It is better 
to give teachers full authority to use the rod and then remove 
those who often find it necessary to do so. 

13. Penalty schedules. Punishments predetermined by 
rule to fit designated offenses not yet committed appeal to 
many teachers as " fair for all alike " and may be approved 
by the children for the same reason. But rules cannot con- 
sider the spirit in which an offense is committed, the differ- 
ent natures of children, home influences, special conditions, 
and momentary temptations. The same offense cannot de- 
serve precisely the same punishment on different occasions. 
Nor, which is more to the point, can the same penalty have 
precisely the same effect on different children. One may 
be overcome with agonies of humiliation, disgrace haunting 
his waking hours and terror his sleep, while another philo- 
sophically considers the prescribed penalty a fair price to 
pay for his fun or for his stupidity in getting caught at it. 



PUNISHMENT 275 

The ascribing of definite penalties to definite offenses tends 
to cause children to regard the offenses as a list of pleasures 
with prices attached. If one breaks a rule, the teacher owes 
him a penalty ; if he gets a penalty amiss, he has but to 
break a rule to get even. Furthermore, it is human nature 
to believe that the thing which has a price is a thing of 
value and to be desired. 

In this connection it may be justifiable to digress for a 
word on the psychology of specific prizes for definite tasks. 
Here the prize is the good thing of value to be sought and 
the lesson the hard thing or penalty which must be ex- 
changed for it. The same boy who would whitewash a fence 
to get money to buy a jackknife would trade the jackknife 
for the privilege of whitewashing the fence if a Tom Sawyer 
were at hand to manipulate incentives. A wise generation 
of teachers, instead of making the child clean up the black- 
boards because he does not know his lesson, permits him 
to clean the blackboard because he does know his lesson. 

14. Educative aspects. The only educative aspect of pun- 
ishment consists in the association established in the pupil's 
mind between the objectionable conduct and some disagree- 
able, inhibiting idea. If the association is close, clear, and 
infallible, the disagreeableness spreads to the idea of the 
conduct and ultimately tends to inhibit it directly. If, how- 
ever, the offense is sometimes undetected or unpunished 
while punishment is imposed frequently by the same person 
for various, offenses, the association is made between the 
disagreeableness and the teacher rather than with the offense. 
Thus the teacher comes to be dreaded as the inevitable evil, 
while the offense is a sort of sporting risk. The forbidden 
conduct, according to the law of association of ideas, comes 
to* be per se a thing to be desired ; the penalty, a price to 
be paid with always a gambling chance to avoid payment if 
one is not caught. Sufficient skill in beating the game and 



276 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

avoiding detection brings the same temptations it does to a 
professional gambler. 

The obvious adjustment to this psychological situation is, 
first, if at times one be compelled to resort to punishment, 
he must the more often and vividly impress himself upon 
the child in pleasant and kindly relations. Do not let the 
teacher be identified as a punisher nor the school as a place 
of punishment. Second, punishment must not be used as 
a preventive unless there is practical certainty of its being 
applied every time the offense is committed. If the punish- 
ment is dependent on the chance of detection, it is a chal- 
lenge rather than a preventive. Make the offense and the 
pun ishm en t inscparab le . 

15. Natural punishment. Unlike other forms, "natural 
punishment " is in itself educative. This consists in letting 
the child suffer the penalties imposed by the laws of nature 
or of society, letting him take the consequences of his act. 
If he overeats or exposes himself, let him be sick and thus 
learn better. If he climbs too high, let him fall. If he tears 
his clothes or loses his toys, let him mend the damage or 
suffer the loss. This policy has the enormous advantage of 
reasonableness. Penalties are not associated with the teacher, 
and wrongdoing no longer has the artificial sweetness of 
forbidden fruit. Practical lessons of natural and social laws 
are learned with a clearness that no telling can impart. More 
than all, there is established a sense of one's responsibility 
for his own conduct. 

But nature's penalties are too uncertain, too erratic, and 
often too severe. Her retribution for playing with guns, fire, 
and railroad trains does not accord with our idea of justice. 
It is too unevenly and too irregularly inflicted. The punish- 
ment quite often precludes the possibility of reform on Che 
part of the offender. Again, a large proportion of nature's 
and of society's penalties are deferred too long to remedy 



PUNISHMENT 277 

the evil. Many are evident only in old age or in " the third 
and fourth generation." Many are so gradual and indefinite 
and so complicated with other circumstances of life that ages 
of human experience have been necessary to discover the 
connection of cause and effect. Wherefore coercion is often 
necessary to supplement natural punishment. If nature were 
really a good teacher, we would have no need for schools 
or pedagogy. 

If the natural penalty is sufficiently near and not too dan- 
gerous, it is very wise to allow it to take its course. But 
the relation between cause and effect must be made very 
plain. The child is entitled to full and fair warning. But 
it is important to discriminate between the chance of injury 
and the certainty of it. To say " You will be hurt," when 
in nine cases out of ten the warning is disproved by the 
event, is to discredit the teacher's veracity and destroy the 
very sense of responsibility which natural punishment seeks 
to establish. To say "You might be hurt," explaining fully 
the improbability and unexpectedness of the penalty but 
balancing this against its severity, is to establish a profound 
respect for the warning and for the policy of " safety first." 

In school management natural punishment must usually 
be artificially imposed. Some typical instances may be the 
following : If a child wastes his schooltime in play, he 
must make up the school work in playtime. If he is dis- 
orderly in the enjoyment of a privilege, he is deprived of 
the privilege. If he makes himself objectionable on the 
playground, he is not allowed there. If he spoils the games 
by his quarreling or unfairness, he is kept out of them. If 
he does his work carelessly, it is not accepted and must be 
done again. If he destroys his own possessions, he must go 
without them. If he injures others or their property, he must 
make good the loss, and this not from the parental purse but 
by deprivation of something that he could otherwise enjoy. 



278 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Grotesque misapplications of the principle occasionally 
occur, as when a teacher compels a child to eat half a 
dozen lunches because he has eaten his own before time, 
or requires him to chew a wad of paper before the class 
because he has been caught chewing gum, or washes out 
his mouth with soap because he has used foul language. 
Nothing could well be more wmatural than such penalties. 

1 6. Social penalties. Finally, as we have seen that the 
social motive is the most effective for work, so the most 
effective and permanently valuable punishment is that in- 
flicted by a group of one's peers. Puffer and other students 
of children's groups have given innumerable instances of 
the complete efficiency of the penalties inflicted by mem- 
bers of a group upon one who had violated some rule or 
standard of their adoption. It has been found that expul- 
sions by college students under an honor system of govern- 
ment are less erratic and more uniformly just than those 
by faculty action. Numerous cases of punishment imposed 
by the children of classrooms in the public schools upon 
their own members show the same gratifying results. Pen- 
alties inflicted by the children, whatever the formality or 
the informality of the group government, are usually more 
just, because evidence is more freely obtained and motives 
are much better understood and appreciated by the children 
than by the teacher. They are more effective, because the 
social disapproval itself is more dreaded than any depriva- 
tion and often makes other correction entirely unnecessary. 
They are accepted by the punished one as a " square deal," 
because he realizes that they are not arbitrary and do not arise 
from partiality or temper. They do not create friction be- 
tween school authorities and parents, for even parents recog- 
nize the justice of them. They enable the teacher to take 
a helpful and kindly attitude toward the erring one, often 
to become his advocate and thus gain a stronger hold upon 



PUNISHMENT 279 

him and save him for the school and for society. They 
prevent the social sympathy of the class from going out 
to the child as against the teacher, making the one a hero 
and the other a tyrant in their sight. Social punishment 
is natural punishment and gives an insight into the work- 
ing and spirit of government. It accords with the spirit of 
all the principles we have formulated. Its preventive effect 
upon the class is the best possible, and the educative value 
in training the moral judgment and in the development 
of an esprit de corps on a high plane cannot be sur- 
passed. Furthermore, all the teacher's power and authority 
are held in reserve for use in case the class conduct 
should go astray, gaining in dignity through its unused and 
unknown possibilities. 

As expressed by a writer in the Outlook: "Appar- 
ently the philosophy of the thing is this : When punished 
by your teacher you are a martyr in the eyes of your fel- 
lows. When punished by your fellows you are a disgrace 
to their community." 

PROBLEMS 

1. It is a traditional sort of statement among men that they 
were frequently thrashed during their schooldays and that they 
"never got a lick amiss." Gather from them and others precise 
accounts of these cases of punishment and determine as well as 
possible the effect of the whipping on (a) the work, (//) conduct, 
(p) permanent attitudes toward school and teacher. Do the facts 
seem to bear out the statements ? How far does the general tend- 
ency to look back with pleasure upon all the hardships of boyhood 
contribute to the opinion referred to ? 

2. Investigate carefully several recent cases of corporal punish- 
ment, particularly studying the effects upon the child's attitude 
toward the teacher and the school work. 

3. What are the rules and regulations in force in your school 
regarding punishment ? 



280 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

4. Consider any case of misbehavior and punishment which 
has come to your attention and (a) propose better forms of pun- 
ishment, (b) other treatment which you regard as better for this 
case than punishment. 

5. Consider the same treatment as having been inflicted upon 
several different children, selecting those varying as much as 
possible in temperament, age, and home surroundings. 

6. Study any available cases of corporal punishment from the 
viewpoint of this chapter in regard to their brutalizing effect or 
their use as a last resort. 

7. For each of the cases of punishment you have recorded 
above propose some form of " natural punishment " if possible. 

READINGS 

Arnold. School and Class Management, chaps, x-xii. 
Bain. Education as a Science, pp. 100-120. 
Bagley. Classroom Management, chap. viii. 
Bagley. School Discipline, chaps, x-xiv. 
Coe. Education in Religion and Morals, chap. ix. 
Compayre. Lectures on Pedagogy, pp. 463-476. 
Griggs. Moral Education, chaps, xv, xvi. 
Morehouse. The Discipline of the School, chap. x. 
O'Shea. Social Development and Education, chap, xv 
Puffer. The Boy and his Gang, chaps, xi-xiii. 
Salisbury. School Management, chap. xiv. 
Seeley. A New School Management, chap. viii. 
Spencer. Education, chap. iii. 

Weimar. The Way to the Heart of the Child, chap. vi. 
White. School Management, pp. 190-217. 



CHAPTER XXV 
CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 

What is order? VVc have heard that "order is heaven's 
first law," but if order means unnatural silence, straight 
lines, rigid positions, and formality, there is little that is 
heavenly about the places where it prevails. It is neither 
heavenly nor natural. The elaborate, laborious silence, the 
suppression of natural activity, known as " order " in many 
schoolrooms, defies every precedent and violates every law 
found in the order of nature. The one criterion of order- 
liness in school is conduciveness to educative activity. Not 
the sound of the "pin-drop" but the sound of happy in- 
dustry is the test of good school order — ■ not tense restraint 
but intense activity. The noise of children happy and busy 
is not disorder unless it prevents others from being happy 
and busy. The methods of orderly government consist not 
in repressing activity so much as in stimulating it ; not in 
continually stopping something but in " starting something," 
not in correcting but in directing ; not in pupil suppression 
but in pupil expression. 

Transition of government to social control. The govern- 
ments of society, political and pedagogical alike, have passed 
from the merely negative level to the • positive ; from pre- 
venting mutual destruction to fostering mutual progress. 
The assumption of the old regime was that subjects or chil- 
dren had neither the intelligence nor the community of sym- 
pathy to govern themselves. The new type of government 
assumes that they never will, except through the exercise 
of such intelligence and sympathy as they do have. School 

281 



282 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

monarchs, like political ones, erred in overestimating their 
own fitness to rule and in underestimating the social capac- 
ity of their subjects for self-rule. We entered the World 
War to establish the rights of people to rule themselves ; 
because " The world must be made safe for democracy." 
The safety of democracy involves the development of people 
in self-rule no less than the overthrow of the self-seeking 
tyrannies. The latter is a task for armies ; the former is 
one for schools. The wiser teachers become, the less dog- 
matic and cocksure are they about their own methods and 
policies and the more respect they have for child initiative 
and social sympathy. Modern study of children has disclosed 
undreamed-of resources for wise self-direction and has given 
a new conception of the pedagogical divine right to rule. 

Government must vary with the governed. It is the 
nature of very young children to accept parental guidance 
without question. Their capacity for self-direction is con- 
sumed in managing their simple muscular coordinations. 
The problem in governing them is how to mother them 
wisely. The blunder of the schools has always been inertia. 
They have sought to keep the children infants when in the 
course of nature they became otherwise. 

European universities, originally voluntary assemblies of 
adult knowledge-seekers, have clung zealously to their demo- 
cratic administration. The older American colleges, however, 
have grown up rather from schools of boys and therefore 
have had to adopt some form of student government to 
get it. The principle was first ingrafted at the old College 
of William and Mary as the " honor system " in 1779. Dur- 
ing the past century various types of honor systems or plans 
of student government have extended to American higher 
institutions. Many of these assume responsibility only for 
honesty in examinations, others extend their oversight to 
hazing and thieving and, in some cases, to practically the 



CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 283 

whole of the student's life. American high schools have 
tended to mimic our colleges in many things, and elementary 
schools too often mimic the high schools. Thus the toga 
virilis of American school government, the honor system, 
has been put on by many schools that would be better fitted 
with administrative kilts. 

Success of the democratic spirit in school. Still this 
democratic tendency has resulted in better standards of 
order, even in more rigid standards of silence and restraint, 
for it has been self-restraint. By enlisting the cooperation 
instead of the opposition of the child's social impulses, 
it has been an easier, a more economical means of attain- 
ing favorable working conditions. The evils of it are due 
to installing a form, the benefits to developing a spirit. It 
is the same old story, the inevitable, recurrent story of 
politics, of art, of literature, of religion, of thought, — the 
form without the spirit is void. 

School cities. Few schools probably exhibit higher stand- 
ards of quiet, busy orderliness than some of those in which 
" school cities " exist. Their standards of conduct are fixed 
in pupil legislative assemblies, while pupil courts, pupil 
inspectors, pupil policemen, and pupil truant officers en- 
force their laws and administer discipline. The teacher 
retains, in varying degrees, an advisory relation and usually 
the right of veto, but is often little more than an onlooker, 
the royal figurehead of a limited monarchy. In these 
school democracies, also, history has repeated itself with an 
interesting faithfulness. Some of them have succeeded 
magnificently and are enthusiastically heralded as the solu- 
tion of all the ills of government. Some have failed utterly 
because they were too suddenly "adopted" for an unpre- 
pared citizenry. Others have worked well so long as the 
original founder dominated, showing that however demo- 
cratic in form they were dictatorships in fact. Still others, 



284 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

through unwise meddling of the abdicating monarchs, unwill- 
ing to let difficulties evolve their own solution, have brought 
the whole of self-government into contempt as a meaning- 
less mockery. And, true still to historical precedent, critics 
of these school democracies have been prone to exaggerate 
their newly developed evils and to forget the greater faults 
of the old monarchies, ■ — ■ faults to which the critics were 
so inured as perhaps never to have seen them at all. 

No teacher of children can afford to be ignorant of the 
working and spirit of the elaborate " school cities." Whether 
or not they may be desirable for general adoption or for 
any particular community, it cannot be questioned that they 
show the limitless possibilities oixhildren for self-government. 
Merely as a dramatization of the fundamental lessons of 
civics they are a genuinely important contribution to modern 
education. The aim of this volume, however, demands that 
we limit our further discussion to a less radical type of 
school government. 

Liberty grows with capacity for it. The public school 
is ideally situated for developing the capacity, for and the 
forms of self-government pari passu. Starting with the 
physical helplessness and natural docility of the primary 
child, each privilege and responsibility should be assumed 
by him just so far as he will use it wisely. He is free to do 
whatever contributes to his work or comfort provided it does 
not interfere with the work or comfort of any other. Restric- 
tions should be imposed on no other ground than this and 
should be as few as possible. One gets his drink or speaks 
or leaves the room on precisely the same terms that he 
should elsewhere, — that it interferes with no duty, that it 
interferes with no one else, that it is done as a lady or gen- 
tleman should do it. Children must learn through observa- 
tion and trial just what it is that does annoy others and just 
what does interfere with work. 



CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 2S5 

Results of unnecessary restrictions. To require special 
permission for leaving the room, getting a drink, speaking 
to a neighbor, passing a book, or other natural and common 
acts accomplishes several undesirable results. The very re- 
striction gives such things an unnatural desirability and mul- 
tiplies the frequency of the requests. The frequent requests, 
whether by snapping of fingers or less objectionable means, 
cause more distraction of both teacher and class than would 
result from acting without permission. There is more or 
less of immodesty, which all are forced to hear and to prac- 
tice, that is quite opposed to refined training. All training 
in discretion, all development of self-government in the 
matters involved is forestalled. How can children be ex- 
pected to do as ladies and gentlemen should do unless they 
are given the chance to do as ladies and gentlemen do ? 

Values of self -direction. Certain restrictions may be 
found necessary and desirable, such as that no two shall 
leave their seats at the same time, that none shall remain 
out more than a specified number of minutes, that there 
shall be no leaving within so many minutes of a recess. It 
is far better that children themselves should apply these 
restrictions than for the teacher to be burdened with them, 
and experience shows that the children, with a little guid- 
ance, will execute reasonable restrictions more effectively 
than a teacher can. When one is teaching he cannot be 
thinking of all these details for thirty children at once. 
When doing the latter he cannot be teaching. Granting 
permission relieves the child from any responsibility for the 
wisdom of it. Refusal engenders resentment and a feeling 
of injustice regardless of reasons. 

As already indicated, prescribed rules and regulations tend 
by psychological suggestion to make the proscribed conduct 
attractive. A case in point is the classic instance of the 
new master who promulgated a rule against sliding down the 



286 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

woodshed roof. This amusement had not before occurred 
to the boys, but by the next morning it was their favorite 
occupation. Furthermore, imposed rules prevent any exer- 
cise of the pupil's judgment as to the right and wrong of 
his conduct. However desirable the conduct obtained by en- 
forced regulation, it has a minimum of moral and educative 
value. Children must have the opportunity to decide for 
themselves, and the chance to decide wrong, if they are to 
learn to decide right. 

Initiating social rule. But the making of rules and regu- 
lations, and the faithful carrying out by pupils of those 
made, has the highest educative and moral value. So long 
as their conduct remains unobjectionable, nothing could be 
more absurd than to have rules restricting it. Whenever 
there arises a sufficient reason for restriction, the children 
will appreciate it. Then they should discuss freely and 
frankly the restraints that should be imposed. Wide expe- 
rience has shown that they will almost invariably impose 
more severe restrictions upon themselves than a wise teacher 
would. If whispering has become objectionable, almost any 
grade will promptly vote to prohibit whispering utterly under 
penalty of a whipping or protracted " keeping-in." They are 
only too impetuous in making such rules. Then the teacher's 
broader vision is needed to show them what these rules will 
mean when enforced month after month. At the first, chil- 
dren will impose and submit to their own penalties with 
enthusiasm, but when the new wears off, the constant watch- 
fulness and encouragement of the teacher is essential to 
keep up pressure until the conduct they have sought to 
• establish has become habitual. 

Self-made restrictions — few but infallible. Only as real 
need arises should children be encouraged to make rules for 
their own regulation. But once adopted, with full knowledge 
and free volition, enforcement should be infallible. To attain 



CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 287 

this ideal, rules should be made only after mature thought 
and discussion, only one or very few at a time, and with 
ample provision for their systematic enforcement. The 
teacher should warn pupils against, rather than urge them 
to, radical action. 

Normally, restrictive rules should pertain only to such con- 
duct as is innocent in itself but becomes objectionable owing 
to school conditions. That conduct which is wrong anywhere 
must, of course, be prevented, but it should not be suggested 
by specific regulation in advance. The assumption should be 
respected that children in a school society are amenable to 
and expect to obey political and moral laws and the rules 
of propriety without special legislation. 

Restrictions imposed by authority. Certain official regu- 
lations, concerned mainly with routine procedure, are neces- 
sary to expedite the business of a large school or system. 
The reason for and value of these may well be made clear to 
the children who are expected to observe them. There is no 
good reason why they should not appreciate the significance 
of such regulations, and many reasons why they should. 
But the mere fact that the properly constituted authorities 
have provided them for the benefit of the schools is reason 
enough for unhesitating obedience. Individuals cannot ex- 
pect to judge the wisdom of all laws made for their guidance, 
but by participating in the making of some and understand- 
ing fully the value of many others, a child can readily believe 
that there is a rationality and not a mere arbitrary tyranny 
in those rules which he does not understand. Thus he grows 
up in the law-respecting attitude of a good citizen. 

Rules for the teacher's protection. Systems of regulations, 
as of penalties, marks, and promotions, are often adopted for 
the express purpose of protecting teachers and officials from 
the necessity of decision or from charges of partiality. The 
wrathy parent is ever looming on the weak teacher's horizon. 



288 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Such organization mechanizes the whole life of the school. 
Pupil morality becomes literal, pharisaical, and artificial. 
Teachers hide behind the letter of the law to establish in- 
justice as well as justice. Officials fear to be conscientious, 
sympathetic educators and become mere impersonal judges 
of the technical type. Modern juvenile courts are primarily 
sympathetic, informal, and free from technical and literal 
restrictions. Why should schools retain the archaic policies 
which political government has rejected as a failure ? Be- 
sides, school government by impersonal statute does not 
secure the support and confidence of parents. The teacher 
who keeps in touch with parents, advises with them, takes 
them into his confidence, and then uses his own best judg- 
ment rather than hard and fast rules, is the teacher who 
has the confidence and cooperation of parents. 

Enforcement of laws by pupils. As legislation by the chil- 
dren secures laws better adapted to their needs, more easily 
enforced, and better appreciated, and trains the children in 
ethical judgment, self-direction, and good citizenship ; so ex- 
ecution of these laws by the pupils is more thorough, more 
just, accomplished with less friction, insures sympathetic 
cooperation, and trains the child to appreciate the position 
of public officials and the significance of their work and to 
cooperate in the responsibility of citizens. 

Selection of monitors. Just as it is best to adopt laws 
only as they become needed, so officials should be selected 
for their enforcement in the school society only so far as 
necessary to secure efficient government. Functionless offi- 
cials bring government into disrepute quite as much as un- 
enforced laws. As each law is passed, monitors may be 
selected whose special duty is to enforce it. These monitors 
may well be pupils who themselves are in danger of violating 
the new law, but they certainly must be those in sympathy 
with it. If it is desirable for a class to enforce a law which 



CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 289 

they need, it is particularly desirable for an individual to have 
the enforcing of a law which he needs. Obviously, care must 
be taken to have monitors who are strong enough to en- 
force the law upon themselves as well as upon others, or to 
team them in such combinations that efficiency will surely 
be attained. Short terms in office secure a succession of 
" new brooms" and renewed assurances of faithfulness. The 
actual selection of the monitors affords the highest oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of social judgment by the pupils. 
Here, particularly, the teacher should be always ready with 
warning questions and suggestions, yet without intruding so 
as to rob the children of their sense of responsibility. 

Installation. Every appointment should terminate promptly 
in case of inefficiency or neglect of duty. The duties and re- 
sponsibilities should be clearly determined and made very 
plain, with the assistance of the teacher, before monitors 
are selected. If the duties are likely to be difficult or to 
require much persistence, in which quality children are nota- 
bly weak, the induction into office should be made formal 
and impressive. Frequent conferences of the monitors with 
each other and with the teacher help to keep up interest 
and faithfulness. 

Need of infallible persistency. It is when the first enthu- 
siasm has passed but the end is not yet fully attained that 
the teacher's support and persistent watchfulness is most 
needed. When the children are beginning to forget, the 
teacher must be sure to remember. And teachers are but 
little better than the children in this tendency to become 
slack after the new has worn off. The "Progress Book" 
should here serve as a valuable reminder. There should be 
readily accessible a full record of every law that is passed, 
with the names of monitors whose duty it is to enforce it ; 
a record of all meetings and plans for enforcement. Such 
record may well be kept by the children, if by their own 



290 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

initiative, but it must be available where it will prevent the 
teacher's forgetting. No routine, no drudgery of marking 
papers, no worries or special cases of discipline must pre- 
vent the teacher from seeing to it that once a rule has been 
adopted by the children it is never neglected until its pur- 
pose has been accomplished or it has been formally repealed. 
Laws tacitly ignored make for bad citizenship. In school, 
where training for citizenship is the prime purpose, laws are 
quickly made and unmade, and there can be no excuse for 
dead-letter laws. . 

Social control of punctuality and attendance. The problem 
of promptness and regularity of attendance has been most 
successfully handled by a simple social device. A banner is 
awarded monthly to the class making the best record in these 
respects. In each room two l< class captains " are elected by 
the pupils to keep the records under the supervision of the 
teacher and to Enforce regularity. These captains bring a 
powerful social pressure to bear directly upon each child who 
tends to bring down the class standard. They investigate ex- 
cuses, call upon parents,, and plead most successfully for the 
removal of any home hindrances to perfect attendance. They 
personally see to it that tardiness is not caused by loitering 
along the way. They do all with a thoroughness and fair- 
ness which the busy teacher cannot approximate. They also 
take command of the marching in and out of the lines — 
with the coveted banner at the head of the proud winners. 

Good citizenship in school elections. As to the mode of 
selecting monitors, many methods will be devised by the 
children, but fitness for the office should be the sine qua non. 
In bestowing a public office there must be no political pull, 
partiality of the powers that be, or rewarding of a popular 
favorite. This lesson cannot be learned too early, and it is 
just as important for efficient government in school as in 
the state. 



CONSTRUCTIVE GOVERNMENT 291 

Caution. The necessity for thoroughness and infallible 
persistency emphasizes the necessity for few laws and simple 
government. The government should grow rather than be 
installed. The more elaborate school city may be effective 
and may be a charming lesson in civics, but stability of gov- 
ernment and development of self-control warn us to go slow. 
A genius in organization will occasionally make a complex 
form of government a thorough success, but a mere imitator 
is more likely to make it a fad for a short while and after 
that a joke. Woe unto that school whose government has 
become a joke to its pupils ! 

PROBLEMS 

1. Observe carefully several classrooms and make a written 
analysis of the characteristics which seem to make for order in 
each. Does silence seem to be indispensable to favorable work ? 

2. Among the self-government schemes in actual operation, 
which seem to be " top-heavy " ? Which seem to be regarded 
rather as fads than as practical solutions of daily problems ? To 
what extent do any of them fail to command respect ? 

3. Just what transitions in self-government should be made, 
grade by grade, from the kindergarten to college ? 

4. Draw up a set of regulations such as you think some given 
grade should adopt for itself. Tell how you would go about get- 
ting such regulations adopted. 

5. Examine any set of official regulations and indicate which of 
them are apparently intended to protect teachers from criticism 
and relieve them from the responsibility of making judgments. 

6. Write a summary of all the means you can learn of for 
securing promptness and regularity of attendance. Which of these 
seems to have the greatest permanent educative value ? Why ? 

READINGS 
See next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 

Constructive versus corrective government. In the last 
chapter our discussion assumed a normal situation, just such 
a situation as prevails in well-managed schools everywhere and 
will prevail where bad management does not make it other- 
wise. In such schools government is constructive and edu- 
cative, and serious problems of corrective discipline seldom 
or never arise. But there are schools where bad traditions, 
bad habits, and false ideals have grown up through misman- 
agement, and to any school there may come pupils whose 
conduct is evilly affected by influences beyond the pale of 
school control. Because of the disorderly pupil and the dis- 
orderly school a further discussion of the principles and 
methods of government is advisable. 

Simple deprivation. In those commonplace matters in 
which the pupil has individual liberty to conduct himself 
"as ladies and gentlemen do" the logical treatment of one 
who abuses any privilege is merely to deprive him of that 
privilege. This is " natural punishment " and educative in 
the best sense, provided it is not made unnaturally severe 
or lenient. The pupil should be conscious that the teacher 
is a sympathetic friend, compelled much to his own regret 
to impose the restriction for the protection of the school and 
its standards of conduct. He should know that his teacher 
is genuinely happy when there can be a renewal of complete 
trust and restoration of all privileges. After a pupil has 
been restored to full privileges — especially one of those 
irrepressible pupils who finds it so hard to walk in the 

292 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 293 

narrow way — the teacher should actively help him to retain 
his good standing. Some secret word or sign of warning, 
the holding up of a finger, always pleasantly and "just 
between us two," helps to keep up a bond of sympathy and 
is a practical form of cooperation. Such signs need not be 
thought too childish. They are very effective among boys 
and girls, and the great secret orders of men perpetuate 
them with tremendous solemnity. 

A pupil whose abuse of liberty has necessitated that he 
get special permission to speak to another, to get a drink, 
to leave the room, etc. should not be allowed to disturb the 
class in getting that permission. He should not be allowed 
to ask permission except when the teacher is not engaged in 
a recitation or as may be otherwise most convenient. He 
should know in advance that permission will be granted 
only rarely and when clearly necessary. He may be required 
to write his requests and submit them silently. The depri- 
vation should be very real and not hastily removed, but 
the spirit of the teacher toward him should be sympathetic 
and helpful always. 

Innocent wrongdoing. Aside from the abuse of liberties 
there is conduct which is bad in itself, which would be bad 
anywhere. If this is done innocently the remedy, of course, 
is helpful instruction and sympathetic guidance. " Igno- 
rance of the law " is the best possible excuse for the pupil, 
whatever it may be for the criminal. But the pupil's igno- 
rance is the teacher's responsibility and is quickly remedied. 
It must not be pleaded a second time for the same offense. 

School justice never blind. Conscious violation of the law 
is an entirely different matter. But here, again, the teacher 
must rise above the ideals of the criminal court and consider 
motives rather than the overt act or technical law. Justice 
to children is never blind. Blindness to their impelling 
motives is never just. There must be no haggling over 



294 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

legal technicalities, quibbling as to the precise connotation 
of a written statute. First of all, let the child feel that the 
teacher is his friend and advocate rather than his judge. 
The penalty imposed is only to help him remember and to 
keep him out of such trouble another time, to help him 
to learn an important lesson before his ignorance becomes 
more serious, and to protect the school from his misdoings 
until he can learn to do as others do. The vital step is to 
arouse right motives, to make the child anxious to do right, 
desirous to be helped to self-control. If Ben Lindsey and 
other judges of juvenile courts can deal thus with the 
toughest outcasts of the slums on the short aquaintance of 
the courtroom, surely no teacher in close touch with the 
normal children of the school will dare to say " Impos- 
sible " ! There is no normal child in our schools so hard 
and abandoned that a truly sympathetic teacher cannot reach 
his heart and his motives and deal with them directly. 

Manipulating motives and diagnosing conduct. In dealing 
with the errant motives involved in misconduct two objects 
are in view : first, to prevent the motive from finding any 
satisfaction in the misconduct ; and second, to redirect it into 
right conduct in which it will find satisfaction. For example, 
if a boy disturbs a room in order to show off before the 
class, the punishment must bring him their contempt or 
derision and must not permit him to pose as a hero or 
martyr. What one does "just to annoy the teacher" must 
never succeed in its purpose. He who tries too hard to 
appear "smart" must be made to appear foolish. The 
combative youth must have no chance to get into a physical 
conflict with the teacher, unless it be of the sort that will 
effectually convert his pugnacity into respectful admiration. 
The cheat must submit to frequent additional and more 
searching tests. The liar must lie in vain and thenceforth 
prove his statements to have them accepted. The thief must 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT '295 

pay high for his ill-gotten gains, and his access to the 
property of others must be well guarded thereafter. 

Dishonesty a symptom, not a motive. Dishonesty is not 
a motive, it is a symptom of motives lacking natural means 
of exercise. Cheating, lying, and stealing are the results of 
stimulating perfectly good and normal impulses beyond the 
means of satisfying them. One cheats in examination be- 
cause of the very impulses of rivalry, desire for approval 
and for promotion, which the examining and promoting 
schemes were intended to stimulate. Either less stimula- 
tion or better preparation would remove the temptation to 
cheat. One lies to avoid impending punishment, to obtain 
some undeserved reward or other advantage, or for the 
sake of the admiration elicited by his yarns. If penalties and 
rewards were never unjustly given or promised, if abundant 
opportunities were afforded for the harmless play of the 
imagination, for the love of expression, and for the dramatic 
instinct school lies would be rare indeed. One steals for 
the same reason that the starving waif takes the loaf of 
bread, or the speculator waters railroad stock, - — because 
his genuine needs or his degenerate desires are greater 
than his actual resources. If just needs are provided for 
and right thinking corrects abnormal desires, why should 
there be stealing ? Behind the dishonesty we must find the 
too heavy pressure and relieve it. We must locate the too 
feeble resources and strengthen them. Meanwhile the dis- 
honest act must be made to prove futile. 

Fighting. Fighting may be an expression of cowardly 
bullying ; it may be a desperate self-defense ; it may be 
chivalrous protection of the weak ; it may be mere weak 
imitation under the intentional suggestion of older boys, 
a sort of mob spirit wickedly unloosed by others. Manifestly 
the treatment of these different cases must be totally differ- 
ent, and that, too, regardless of who was the actual physical 



296 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

aggressor. Sometimes the fight itself disposes of the pun- 
ishment and of the victory where they are most needed and 
in proper proportions. Often the results are wholly unjust, 
for might is not right. One may deserve commendation, 
another humiliation, but it is extremely doubtful if com- 
bativeness is ever remedied by further physical combat with 
the teacher, or bullying remedied by the teacher's whipping 
a fellow smaller than himself. 

Profanity. Foul language and profanity in boys, and 
probably all manner of sheer vileness, are due to misguided 
virility. Boys want to appear manly, big, dominant, and 
virile. Their highest ambition is to realize essential manli- 
ness. On the street corner they see the strong, vital ones, 
the doers, the heroic, daring fellows who have seen the 
world and conquered it — according to their own testimony. 
In the pulpit and schoolroom they see the effeminate, 
proper, prosaic, humdrum individuals who never committed 
an impropriety — judging by their righteous pose. A boy 
whose limited experience prevents his seeing below the 
surface of things, whose impulses incline to the concrete 
heroism of a bandit rather than to the sublimated courage 
of a Lincoln or a Lee, who sees action rather than ab- 
straction, may be expected to admire the braggart of the 
corner saloon who has trod all the paths that are dark and 
devious rather than the prosy professor who is shocked by 
a vigorous expletive. 

Vice versus virility. The remedy for these worst of school 
evils is not direct punishment for the offense — especially 
as a very small proportion of such offenses are ever known 
to the teacher — but is in letting the boys see still more of 
life. Show them that the braggarts are not the men who 
do and dare, but are the shallowest of imitations. Show 
them that the vileness of these loafers is not a quality 
which makes for any poor trifle of manliness they may 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 297 

possess. The vices are what they have in common with 
the most despised and degraded of men, — the failures, the 
helpless, the whining, cringing "down-and-outs." Show up 
the braggarts, not as "awful," "dreadful," and "naughty," 
but as contemptible, despicable, and foolish. Fill the boys 
with genuine stories of the heroes worth while, of men 
who really do and dare. Show the clean, vigorous manli- 
ness of explorers, soldiers, great athletes, and masters of 
men. Do not exaggerate the minor vices beyond the facts 
of daily observation. Show that some men may be strong, 
capable leaders of men in spite of these vices, never because 
of them. Get boys to seek the genuine elements of strength, 
of manliness, of virility. Do not be too hasty to satisfy 
their search by wise platitudes and moralizing. Keep them 
hunting for manliness. 

More than all, we need manly men for teachers. Strong, 
vigorous, athletic men — men to whom the men of the 
community look up ; men of whom the loafers and brag- 
garts are afraid ; men with fists, if you please, but especially 
men with backbones and men with hearts pumping clean, 
red blood. Happily we are getting this new type of men 
for our teaching and social work, for scout masters and 
Y.M.C.A. leaders, and we are getting vigorous, virile, active 
"stunts" for boys to do. And these are the real remedies, 
the only remedies, for foulness and vileness. 

As to the girls. We have spoken of boys and of men 
teachers because their problem is the more serious — and 
because we know more about it. It is similarly true that 
the worst conduct of girls is due to womanliness misdirected, 
and the remedy is a clearer appreciation of the hideous 
shallowness of some women and -the genuine, wonderful 
womanliness of others. Girls should know how false it is 
that beauty is only skin-deep and how infinitely lovely is 
the beauty of genuineness, wholesomeness, and earnest, 



298 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

useful womanliness. It is perhaps because there is so much 
more of splendid womanliness than of manliness in our 
American teaching corps that the "boy problem" is so 
much more serious than the girl problem. While a woman 
cannot be expected to exemplify virility for the boys, she 
can teach it if she is the right sort of woman. If a boy's 
teachers must be effeminate, women are to be preferred. 

Authority and rebellion. There are teachers who, bor- 
rowing their ideals of authority from the military, regard 
rebellion as the unpardonable sin of the school child. As 
though driving slaves or mutinous sailors, outnumbered 
forty to one, they say defiance of authority must be sup- 
pressed with an iron hand. "The very existence of govern- 
ment is imperiled if rebellion be not promptly nipped in 
the bud." " The authority of the teacher must be preserved 
at any cost." They seem to regard their own "authority" 
as a sort of windbag which, once punctured, must inevitably 
collapse. Perhaps this is true ! Their sort of government 
is tyranny and fit only for slaves ; it develops subjects for 
servility or for revolution. . 

Democratic school government assumes that it is of the 
pupils, by the pupils, and for the pupils. The authority 
of the school is no more identified with the teacher than 
with the pupils. That government derives its just powers 
from the interests, if not indeed from the consent, of the gov- 
erned is accepted by teachers and pupils alike. Rebellious 
outbreaks are quite normal and will frequently recur. But 
these are simply the natural eruptions of childhood and 
adolescence. The child is rebelling as much against him- 
self as against the school. So far from making deep-laid 
plots to overthrow authority, he is as much surprised by 
his own outbreaks as is the teacher. The child does not 
know the symptoms or the significance of them. The 
teacher ought to know both, and should be prepared to 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 299 

await quietly the end of the eruption and then sympatheti- 
cally help the child to readjust himself. Especially important 
at such times is it to avoid useless show of authority and 
irritating, dictatorial ways. It is the nature of the adolescent 
— and is it not of us all ? — to resent the domineering tone 
more than the substance of actual control. Furthermore, 
nothing could be more absolutely useless and foolish in 
government than the domineering, " bossy " tone ; than a 
scolding voice ; than nagging, recriminating, faultfinding, 
threatening. Few things will more certainly undermine 
dignity and authority 

Commands versus obedience. Commands should be taboo 
in school. Directions should be given in a friendly, coopera- 
tive tone as one would talk to a partner, assuming that the 
instructions are welcome. " Will you " and " thank you " 
are keys to authority as well as to culture. These are the 
sort of commands that freeborn citizens should be taught 
to obey. Voluntary acquiescence in the requests of those 
whose business it is to direct is far better obedience than 
servile submission to a harsh imperative backed by a fear 
of consequences. It is the type of obedience in which the 
citizens of a democracy should be trained. It makes for 
better citizenship, better loyalty and service to the govern- 
ment, more law-abiding and useful manhood. It leaves no 
tendency to " cut loose " when the back of the policeman 
or teacher is turned. 

The authority of fairness and courtesy. But suaviter iti 
mo do implies fortiier in re. Give directions politely. If 
there is reason for changing, be not slow or niggardly in 
accepting suggestions. Leave yourself plenty of opportunity 
for correcting your frequent errors and immature judgments. 
There is no reason for making the children think you 
infallible nor the slightest possibility of doing so. Confi- 
dence is established not by being stubborn but by being 



300 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

right. Such a habit of reasonableness makes it easy on 
occasion to say, "Just take my word for it this time," or 
to ask for immediate obedience without discussion. When 
a tendency to quibble shows itself, or an oversmart insist- 
ence on explanations, or if explanation is asked as a con- 
dition of obedience, it is best to insist quietly that "we will 
do this first and talk about it afterward." The very first 
resistance to the velvet of courtesy should bring a gentle 
pressure of the steel of authority. Make it easy to obey but 
make it inevitable. Do not hurry the child when he is in 
an irresponsible tantrum, but let him cool down to a reali- 
zation of the unavoidable. Before directions take the form 
of command, be absolutely sure that you have the authority, 
the right, the support of higher officials, and that it is 
worth while — then never give up. But this means that 
commands must be given only after cool deliberation, only 
when there can be no question of their justice. 

Threatening versus doing. Threats, like peremptory com- 
mands, have no place in the school. It is fair to warn a child 
that "this must not be done," but it is important to leave 
the consequence of doing it as an indefinite possibility, mak- 
ing sure that if punishment is imposed the connection with 
the offense is made perfectly clear. The hasty "I'll whip 
you if you do that again " is about as subversive of perma- 
nent good discipline as anything that could be devised. 
Usually such a statement is a falsehood, and children are 
not slow to realize this. Authority is indeed at a low ebb 
when children do not even believe the teacher. Word once 
given that a certain consequence zvill follow upon certain 
conduct, it must follow as surely as things human can be 
made sure. This means that threats must not be made in 
anger or in haste but only after due thought and full cal- 
culation of all immediate and ultimate consequences, practi- 
cal, pedagogical, and legal. When all this has been thought 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 301 

out it will doubtless be found that the threat is not worth 
the making. The carefully considered threat is not made. 
Real teacher-courage. A despairing teacher may protest, 
" When one is at his wits' end with a hundred distractions 
and annoyances, how can he help threatening ? " To this 
we can only reply that whether he can help threatening or 
not, the threatening will not help him. " But if we have 
threatened inadvisedly, promised unwisely, or commanded 
unjustly, shall we pursue the mistake to the bitter end and 
perhaps become involved in litigation with loss of position 
and professional standing?" No! sticking to a wrong will 
not make it right. There is just one way to remedy the 
unjust command or threat ; that is, take it back. The 
quicker, squarer, and franker the retraction, the better for 
one's authority. As said above, no one believes you are 
infallible, so why keep up the bluff ? Admit your mistake, 
apologize for an injustice, — as a lady or gentleman should, 

— and the children's respect for you will grow just as yours 
does for the same sort of nobility in one of them. Of course 
it is hard to acknowledge a wrong, — especially for a teacher, 

— but it is just as incumbent on teachers as on other 
mortals. Then, again, it serves to make one more careful 
next time. 

Conclusion. Discipline is required only in cases of emer- 
gency. The basis of discipline is the diagnosis of motives. 
For this, one needs a knowledge of children, a cool head, 
and a sympathetic heart. And in one's diagnosis he must 
never lose sight of the fundamental fact that the impulses 
which impel boys are boy impulses. Boy conduct cannot be 
successfully analyzed into the impulses of a prim and pre-- 
cise maiden lady nor those of a bespectacled bookworm. 
We must read a boy's conduct through his eyes, not 
through our own. This seemingly impossible thing is 
entirely easy if only we utilize the social control of the 






302 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

class. Offenses must be regarded as committed not against 
the teacher but against the class. Standards of order are to 
be established and to be enforced by the class rather than 
by the teacher. The class is the better judge of motives 
and can more efficiently restrain its individuals. 

After all, the only real remedy for bad order is good 
teaching. If we are unwilling for Satan to find work for 
idle hands, we must find it first. Occupation the hands will 
have. Teaching is not merely assigning tasks but making 
them vital and genuine. When this is done there is no idle- 
ness, no laziness, no mischief. This whole problem of disci- 
pline is entirely beside the question for hundreds of teachers. 
It is something with which they have little or no concern. 
They are real teachers. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Analyze the impelling motives of as many cases as possible 
of bad conduct of children, in school and out. (The habit of 
doing this is invaluable for a teacher.) 

2. When you have decided upon the probable motive in any 
such case, determine the treatment which you think would most 
effectively meet the needs of the particular case. 

3. Find, by inquiry and observation and by recalling instances 
during your school life, cases in which dealing with school dis- 
orders by law or regulation complicated instead of relieved the 
difficulty. 

4. Can you find instances in which the punishment strengthened 
instead of defeated the impulse which caused the misbehavior ? 

5. Investigate a number of different cases of scho.ol fighting. 
Point out the differences in cause among them and different treat- 
ment appropriate for those involved. Can you give instances in 
which different treatment of different individuals under the same 
circumstances would be justifiable ? 

6. Similarly, point out distinctions in other forms of miscon- 
duct — profanity, falsehood, stealing, cheating, etc, — in which 



CORRECTIVE GOVERNMENT 303 

overt acts were similar but underlying causes were quite different. 
What differences in discipline would be appropriate? 

7. Considering as many instances as you can of ''rebellion 
against the teacher's authority," which were premeditated plans to 
undermine authority and which were mere uncontrollable outbreaks 
of temper provoked by some harshness or supposed injustice ? 

READINGS 

ARNOLD. School and Class Management, chaps, iv, viii-xii. 

BAGLEY. Classroom Management, chap. viii. 

BAIN. Education as a Science, pp. 52-118. 

COLGROVE. The Teacher and the School, chap. xxiv. 

CRONSON. Pupil Self-Government. 

DEWEY. Schools of To-morrow, chap. xi. 

DUBOIS. The Natural Way. 

Dutton. School Management, chap. viii. 

Dutton and SNEDDEN. Administration of Public Education in the 

United States, chap, xxviii. 
GORDY. A Broader Elementary Education, chap, xxvii. 
Griggs. Moral Education, chap. xiii. 
KING. Education for Social Efficiency, chap. x. 
O'SHEA. Everyday Problems in Teaching, chaps, i, ii. 
O'Siiea. Social Development and Education, Part I and chap. xv. 
PAGE. Theory and Practice of Teaching, chap. x. 
Parker. Talks on Teaching, chaps, xxiv-xxv. 
Puffer. The Boy and his Gang. 
Sabin. Common Sense Didactics, chap. ix. 
Scott. Social Education, chap. xii. 
Seeley. New School Management, chaps, vii-x. 
Swift. Mind in the Making, chaps, ii, iii. 
Tompkins. School Management, p. 157. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

COMMUNITY COOPERATION 

School as the center of education. Not all of a child's 
education is in school — not even the major part. Every 
experience of life, in just the proportion that it is vital, 
just so far as it can affect subsequent conduct, is a factor 
in education. Home, church, street, fields, and woods ; 
work, play, reading, amusements, and conversations, — all 
are as truly educative as school and study. But these others 
are educative only incidentally, while the school has no other 
reason for its existence. The school supplements, organizes, 
and unifies these others. Education "begins at the cradle 
and ends at the grave," but it is school that affords the 
scheme of organization for it all. School provides the plan 
and policies of life and that core of interests by which it is 
determined from hour to hour which educative influences 
shall be selected and assimilated from the limitless universe 
of one's experiences. School life interprets all life. Our 
school subjects are no Dinge an sick ; they have no reality in 
themselves. They are but our means of apprehending our 
out-of-school experiences. Giving the child school subjects 
without relating them to life is not unlike supplying him 
with elaborate machines without knowledge or opportunity 
for their use ; tools without skill, plans, or materials. 

The foundation of society. Education is society's means 
of self-preservation. It is the means by which the social 
whole secures a constantly renewed supply of members who 
will seek its welfare through their own — not their own at 
society's expense. It is the development of moral and 

3°4 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 305 

efficient members of society for which the schools exist, — 
those who arc both "good and good for something." Tra- 
dition has worn the paths of academic progress into such 
deep ruts that many who travel therein are wholly unable 
to see the goal to which they are traveling or the direction 
of the course they are following. Teachers are often con- 
tent to follow blindly the paths that have been trodden, 
heedless of whither they lead. But the goal, whether or 
not our paths shall lead there, is this useful and helpful 
member of society, and it is the real business of the school 
to focus upon this aim all of its own forces and, as far as 
possible, those of the world outside of itself. 

The unifier of modern life. Modern industrial organiza- 
tion of society has brought about a very highly specialized 
and complex order of affairs. Every individual's existence 
is becoming more dependent on world-wide interrelations 
and commercial cooperation. The work of the individual 
finds its value only in the conjunction of countless streams 
of diverse interests. Yet these very conditions of depend- 
ence result in the laborers knowing less and less of 
their own and of each other's part in the whole process. 
Commercial progress makes for infinitely greater interde- 
pendence with incomparably less community of sympathy. 
Living becomes vicarious in form but selfish in spirit. To 
meet this new condition the modern school has a new and 
much broader responsibility than the schools of the simple 
society of former generations. Its supreme task is no longer 
merely academic training ; it is to unify the educative influ- 
ences outside of itself, to reintegrate the interests and 
sympathies which social and industrial tendencies are disin- 
tegrating, to bridge gaps and weld together fragmentary 
bits of experience afforded by out-of-school life, to make 
out of the mystifying complexity of life as seen from the 
angle of any individual outlook a rational, beneficent whole. 



306 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

It is to show that the small contribution of every individual 
is worthy and supremely important when intelligibly related 
to the purpose and plan of the whole. 

Community correlations. This unifying function of the 
school is being accomplished by vitally interrelating the 
work of the school with the life about it. Every school 
subject finds its motivation and its materials in the imme- 
diate environment. Classes in school read and write and 
calculate and they talk and think about the things which 
mean most to them out of school. The best books in 
geography, , in history, in science, in ethics, in civics, in 
industry, are nature and the neighborhood life. Here also 
are the best laboratories, the motivating problems, the limit- 
less source of materials and, in fact, the final justification 
for including most subjects in the curriculum. 

" The social trend " is the dominant note in current 
educational thought and achievement. Correlation of school 
work with community life is the burden of recent writings 
and discussions. No longer is the school a thing apart ; it 
is the heart of the community life. It contributes to every 
institution and aspect of the life of the people, and all these 
make their contributions to it. 

It is not permissible here to go into the matter of the 
correlation of studies with community activities. But the 
problems of organization and government also find their 
most effective means and their ultimate justification in 
their adjustment to community life. Some of the profit- 
able reciprocal relations which may readily be established 
in almost any community are suggested. 

The press. The press, itself a distinctively educative 
force, offers special advantages for cooperation. Items of 
school news bring the claims of public education to the 
front and tend to develop school pride in both pupils and 
people. Policies and needs of the school can thus be 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 307 

brought constantly to the public attention. An " honor 
roll" in public print affords a powerful incentive to indi- 
vidual effort and group loyalty. The roll may be based 
on promptness, regularity, scholarship, deportment, or any 
combination of these which will accomplish the effect sought 
at the time. It may be large, including all who do well, 
or it may be small enough to be a decided distinction. 
Like all incentives, its use should be discriminating and 
varied — not routine. 

Occasional publication of children's letters, compositions, 
and drawings is a wholesome and effective stimulus. These 
should not be primarily for "showing off" but should be 
something of real value to the readers. They may be an 
indication of the character of the work of the school, or 
actual information of interest to the reading public. All 
children above the primary grades are occasionally learning 
facts which would be of interest to many of their elders 
if well expressed. This applies particularly to the facts of 
the home community and its life. The geography, geol- 
ogy, birds, plants, soils, occupations, history, and traditions 
of the neighborhood are always new to some of the com- 
munity. Such local studies will bring to the front many 
questions on which data is lacking. Let the local paper 
be the medium for gathering ideas from the community as 
well as for disseminating them. The papers are more than 
repaid for publishing anything readable by the mere fact that 
it is read. It pays the school as well as other advertisers to 
keep itself in the public eye. 

News columns afford materials for the study of current 
events. The fact that there is much in them that is merely 
sensational is an additional reason why the children should 
early be trained to winnow the wheat from the chaff. These 
are the papers they will read and do read. Why not teach 
them to read wisely ? Why train them so laboriously to 



3o8 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

read Addison's Spectator and what was news in the time 
of Cicero, while leaving them helpless to read discrimi- 
natingly the evening paper and what happened to-day 
throughout the world ? The editorial columns discuss the 
live problems of the day and the community. Whence 
could children better draw themes for debate and studies 
of living issues ? Daily market quotations afford an in- 
exhaustible supply of vitalizing problems in the arithmetic 
of stocks, brokerage, and commission. Advertising columns 
show the trend of progress and standards of living, show 
where information regarding industries may be accessible, 
suggest many lines of study and afford materials therefor. 

" The movies." Moving pictures afford an agency un- 
equaled for teaching through the eye. In many quarters 
they are being deplored as an agency unequaled for corrupt- 
ing morals and interfering with home study. Quite logically, 
therefore, progressive schools are now being equipped with 
instruments of their own, and producers are preparing reels 
which will be invaluable in the teaching of school sub- 
jects. Where machines are not available these reels may 
be secured for exhibition at the regular show houses under 
conditions of advantage to both showman and schoolman. 

Other public entertainments. Lyceum courses, lectures, 
and concerts of every desirable kind have long been re- 
garded as natural co-laborers with the school, and the 
indorsement and support of educators is commonly sought 
by them. This is right. All such agencies should be 
welcomed by the school authorities as reinforcements, and 
class work may well be readjusted to secure an effective 
correlation. A few hours devoted to preparing for and 
following up a good lecture or concert should produce far 
greater educative dividends than the same time spent on 
the routine of study. A course of study which is not adapt- 
able to such variations is in danger of ossification. 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 309 

School and public service ; reciprocal benefits. Govern- 
ment, in every aspect with which the child is likely to 
come into contact, is a peculiarly important part of the 
community environment with which to relate the activities 
of the school. It is becoming quite the usual custom in 
many cities for classes to visit the various departments of 
city government, studying them in every relation they bear 
to the people. This has brought the children to feel an 
interest and partnership in the work of these departments, 
to become useful cooperators, and to get a sympathetic 
insight which is sure to make them better citizens later 
on. The effect on the departments themselves has been 
decidedly wholesome. One city reports that the water- 
works plant has never been so carefully kept as since it 
has become the custom of the school children to visit it. 
Everywhere the police force has benefited by a friendly, 
cooperative attitude of the boys as much as the boys have 
benefited by their loss of fear and gain in understanding of 
the " cop." Needless restrictions on the boys have been 
removed, places for them to play have been found and they 
have been protected in that play, while they themselves have 
reciprocated by avoiding play that interferes with the rights 
or pleasures of others. There has been a marked decrease 
in the destruction of public or exposed property. The boys 
have become its defenders. Streets and parks are more 
easily kept in order, though used more than ever by the 
children. It is no longer necessary to start a blaze in order 
to see the fire engine, as has often been true in the past. 
The boy who has been courteously shown over the whole 
fire department and had its operation explained will prove 
a valuable ally in discovering or preventing fires and is 
proud to do the right thing at the right time. 

Systematic instruction by public officials. Quite com- 
monly some competent person from the fire, police, water, 



310 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

street, or other city department will give a series of talks 
to the school children, explaining in more or less detail 
the working of the department and showing how its effi- 
ciency may be increased by the cooperation of the people. 
The children, and through them their parents, thus have 
the opportunity to become more useful citizens and to work 
intelligently in raising the standards of their public service. 
Such relations inevitably make the departmental officials 
more conscious of their own deficiencies and more consci- 
entious in their service. 

The courts. In a similar way a first-hand study of the 
courts brings the child into an appreciative understanding 
of government on the restrictive side. Viewing its work- 
ings from the side of the government, one comes to have a 
respect for the law without the fear or antagonism so char- 
acteristic of the boy on the street. While the child should 
not see the more sordid cases, he may well have a chance to 
see the perils of the sort of offenses that he is likely to fall 
into and to understand the conditions which are likely to 
lead to such offenses. A judge will often welcome the oppor- 
tunity to impart to future citizens through occasional talks 
those lessons which his experience shows they most need 
as safeguards to their prospective citizenship. The weight 
which such instruction would carry with it is obvious. 

Legislative bodies. There could hardly be a more effective 
training in good citizenship than to have pupils or represen- 
tative committees from the high school attend the meetings 
of the city council or board of county commissioners. The 
live problems of public affairs may thus become the problems 
for school study and debate. Parents are naturally consulted 
for materials and opinions and thus derive a renewed inter- 
est in these questions. It needs no argument to prove that a 
lack of knowledge and consequent lack of interest in public 
matters is the prime cause of official corruption. If such 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 311 

meetings are not fit places for schoolboys and schoolgirls to 
be, it is certainly time that citizens, young and old, should 
take steps to see that they are made fit. As for understand- 
ing public affairs, it should be remembered that they go 
primarily to learn. 

Commercial bodies and welfare organizations. In pro- 
gressive communities there are various unofficial bodies 
organized for the public welfare, such as chambers of com- 
merce, business associations, and various welfare leagues. 
These usually consist of the best people of the community 
engaged in seeking its best interests. Their purpose can be 
tremendously aided by seeking the interest and cooperation 
of the school children, and the school can find no more 
effective agency for teaching the highest lessons of civics. 
In Winston- Salem, North Carolina, and some other cities 
the Chamber of Commerce has admitted the high-school 
boys to an affiliated membership and organized them into a 
Junior Chamber devoted to a study of the same questions 
and fostering of the same ideals and purposes. The civic 
leagues, improvement associations, and women's clubs, 
which have been such potent agencies for community better- 
ment all over the country, have found the cooperation of 
auxiliary or junior leagues to be an effective means of 
accomplishing many of their purposes. 

Efficiency of children in public work. This wise organiza- 
tion and stimulation of school children has frequently been 
followed by truly surprising results in the way of beautifying 
or cleaning up a town. Their sharp eyes and busy hands 
can accomplish wonders when directed by wholesome enthu- 
siasm. Many trying forms of disorder and mischief with 
which the constituted authorities are powerless to cope can 
readily be controlled through the ubiquitous small boy. He 
may at least be trusted not to engage in that which he is 
appointed to suppress. 



312 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

In Indianapolis pupil participation in the government of the 
school leads naturally into pupil participation in the larger civic 
life of the community of which the school itself is a part. Main- 
taining order on the playground naturally extends to maintaining 
order on the streets in the vicinity of the school. It is common 
for committees of older boys to look after the safety of younger 
children in crossing streets near the school. Solicitude for the 
cleanliness and beauty of school grounds develops equal solicitude 
for the cleanliness and beauty of adjoining streets, alleys, and va- 
cant lots. School gardening quickly stimulates home gardening, and 
whole neighborhoods have been transformed through the influence 
of the schools. — Letter of United States Bureau of Education 

Boy Scouts. The Boy Scout movement, which has swept 
the world, is an untold power for educative progress. It 
should have, and doubtless has, the unqualified support 
and cooperation of school authorities everywhere. The Scout 
spirit of manliness could with great profit be carried over 
into much of the work of the school. Wherever modifica- 
tion of schedule, course of study, or other accommodation 
can bring about a more effective cooperation with the Scout 
organization, the schools will doubtless be the gainers as 
well as the Scouts. 

School savings bank. The school savings bank affords 
an unequaled practical agency for training in thrift. By 
cooperation with a progressive bank, deposit books are pro- 
vided. At stated times the teachers or other designated per- 
sons receive deposits of one cent or more and transfer them 
in a lump to the bank. The plan is so easily operated and 
so readily responded to, especially by the poorer pupils, that 
it should be in use everywhere, city and country. 

The school savings bank of Public School No. 77 of Borough 
of Queens, New York City, has had $4300 deposited in it in the 
three years of its existence. More than half of this amount is still 
on deposit either with the school bank or with a State Savings 
Bank. — Letter of United States Bureau of Education 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 313 

Industries of the community. Every industry of the com- 
munity likewise has its values in assisting the school activi- 
ties, both by the materials it affords for concrete, vitalized 
instruction and in its lessons of organization and reciprocal 
service to the community and to the industrial world. The 
enlightened management of such concerns usually feels more 
than repaid for any part it may take in making its opera- 
tions clear to children, by the mere fact of having the pub- 
lic attention called to them. "Visitors Welcome" has been 
found to be much better advertising than " Keep Out," and 
as a foundation for a large permanent prosperity children 
are a most desirable class of consumers to keep in touch 
with. A favorable impression on future consumers is re- 
garded as a good investment. And for the school, few 
forms of instruction are as effective and economical as these 
industrial studies. 

In one city a locomotive works equipped a small machine 
shop for a high school and guaranteed to give employ- 
ment to every boy graduating from the high school who 
desired it. The investment was doubtless a good one. A 
large dominant industry can well afford the materials and 
equipment to make the local school a training school for its 
future employees, and to contribute freely to turning the 
thoughts of the community favorably towards its activities 
and purposes. 

Educative materials as advertising. Many progressive 
manufacturing concerns have found it a desirable form of 
advertising to supply schools in general with instructive ex- 
hibits of pictures, models, specimens, and samples, showing 
each step in the process by which the raw materials are con- 
verted into the finished product. One large concern sup- 
plies at a nominal cost a series "of lectures, illustrated with 
stereopticon views and moving pictures — practically without 
advertising — showing the historical development of the 



314 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

industry in which it is engaged from primitive times to 
the present. Others furnish views and facts from which 
any person can readily develop a lecture. Another main- 
tains a "service bureau" at considerable cost to cooperate 
with schools in affording any facts, information, references, 
or advice looking toward vitalizing instruction in the agri- 
cultural industry in which it is interested. 

Railroad cooperation. Railroads have usually proved valu- 
able and willing aids in educational work, and their in- 
formation bureaus afford splendid illustrative and instruc- 
tive materials regarding any country or industry tributary to 
their respective lines. Their activity in cooperation with the 
state departments of agriculture or the state agricultural 
colleges and with the health departments, maintaining ex- 
perimental farms and furnishing lecture and exhibit trains, 
shows the progress of enlightened selfishness and liberal 
cooperation of these great corporations with the agencies 
for public welfare. 

Instruction by housekeepers. The superintendent of a 
western town was without funds or equipment for introduc- 
ing domestic science. He enlisted the aid of the best house- 
keepers in town. At appointed times the class of girls visited 
the homes of these ladies in turn. Each taught the girls in 
her own way the thing which she could do best. One taught 
how to make bread ; another, salad ; another, cake ; another, 
butter. One taught how to clean a room ; another, how to 
set the table and how to serve, etc. The girls rendered real 
service where possible and brought materials for the cook- 
ing. Thus everyone was benefited. The girls not only had 
the direct instruction but incidentally gathered many ideas of 
home-making. The highest housekeeping standards of the 
community were made known in most of the homes, and 
the cooperating ladies became profoundly interested in the 
work and success of the school. 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 315 

Instruction by tradesmen. The cooperation of carpenters, 
blacksmiths, gardeners, and masters in other trades may be 
secured at school or at their own shops to instruct the chil- 
dren in those practical things which everyone ought to know. 
The school may well reciprocate by helping to honor and 
dignify craftsmanship everywhere and by encouraging the 
children to render assistance of real value where possible. 

School-home gardens. In any rural community or any 
urban community where there are vacant lots and back yards 
uncultivated, lessons from farmers and gardeners should have 
a peculiarly immediate and practical, as well as educative, 
value. Reports of the United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation indicate that these home gardens under school direc- 
tion and guidance are coming to have a considerable economic 
importance to the families of the children engaged in culti- 
vating them, while their values in improving the conditions 
of the yards and vacant lots, in keeping children from idling 
on the streets, and in inspiring ideals of thrift and self-respect 
are too obvious to need discussion. A paid and trained in- 
structor is necessary to conduct this work on a large scale, 
but the small beginnings can be profitably conducted by any 
earnest teacher or public-spirited person with the advisory 
assistance of some gardener. In 19 16 the total values of the 
products of these school-home gardens amounted to many 
thousands of dollars, and the movement is hopefully expected 
to play no small part in relieving the strain of world-wide 
food shortage. A number of school children have each pro- 
duced more than one hundred dollars' worth of foodstuffs 
in this way. Both directly and indirectly it is a movement of 
national economic significance. The Bureau of Education 
publishes a series of very practical School-Home Garden 
Circulars which will be sent to any interested persons. 

Medical counsel. A physician of high ideals may be of 
incalculable value to the school. He can talk on moral and 



316 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

hygienic problems with an authority and effectiveness beyond 
the power of the teacher. Most of these professional men are 
willing and well fitted to contribute to the general welfare in 
this way. Their talks on personal hygiene clinch and drive 
home with a tremendous force the lessons taught from the 
texts. Medical and dental inspection, as discussed in another 
chapter, also afford opportunities for the professional men of 
the smaller communities to cooperate with reciprocal benefits. 
School credits for home work. An interesting form of 
cooperation with the homes'was devised by Mr. A. I. O'Reilly 
of Polk County, Oregon, and has been extended with varia- 
tions to many parts of the country. This is a plan of giv- 
ing school credits for home work of various kinds, as indicated 
by the following schedule of credits : 1 

Building fire in the morning, 5 minutes ; milking a cow, 5 min- 
utes ; cleaning out the barn, 1 o minutes ; splitting and carrying in 
wood (12 hours' supply), 10 minutes; turning cream separator, 
10 minutes; cleaning horse (each horse), 10 minutes; gather- 
ing eggs, 1 o minutes ; feeding chickens, 5 minutes ; feeding 
pigs, 5 minutes ; feeding horse, 5 minutes ; feeding cows, 5 min- 
utes ; churning butter, 1 o minutes ; making butter, 1 o minutes ; 
blacking stove, 5 minutes ; making and baking bread, 1 hour ; 
making biscuits, 10 minutes; preparing the breakfast for family, 
30 minutes ; preparing supper for family, 30 minutes ; washing 
and wiping dishes (one meal), 1 5 minutes ; sweeping floor, 5 min- 
utes ; dusting furniture (rugs, etc., one room), 5 minutes; scrub- 
bing floor, 20 minutes ; making beds (must be made after school), 
each bed 5 minutes ; washing, ironing, and starching own clothes 
that are worn at school (each week), 2 hours ; bathing (each bath), 
30 minutes ; arriving at school with clean hands, face, teeth, and 
nails, and with hair combed, 1 o minutes ; practicing music lesson 
(for 30 minutes), 10 minutes; retiring on or before 9 o'clock, 
5 minutes ; bathing and dressing baby, 1 o minutes ; sleeping with 
window boards in bedroom (each night), 5 minutes ; other work 

1 Alderman, School Industrial Credit and Home Industrial Work. 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 317 

not listed, reasonable credit. The conditions and rules of the 
home-credit contest are given here: 

1. No pupil is obliged to enter the contest. 

2. Any pupil entering is free to quit at any time, but if any- 
one quits without good cause, all credits he or she may have 
earned will be forfeited. 

3. Parent or guardian must send an itemized list (with signa- 
ture affixed) to the teacher each morning. This list must contain 
the record of the work each child has done daily. 

4. Each day teacher will issue a credit voucher to the pupil. 
This voucher will state the total number of minutes due the pupil 
each day for home work. 

5. At the close of the contest pupils will return vouchers to 
teacher, the six pupils who have earned the greatest amount of 
time, per the vouchers, receiving awards. 

6. Contest closes when term of school closes. 

7. Once each month the names of the six pupils who are in 
the lead will be published in the county papers. 

8. Ten per cent credit will be added to final examination 
results of all pupils (except eighth graders) who enter and continue 
in the contest. 

9. When pupil has credits to the amount of one day earned, 
by surrender of the credits and proper application to teacher he 
may be granted a holiday, provided not more than one holiday may 
be granted to a pupil each month. 

10. Forfeitures — Dropping out of contest without cause, all 
credits due ; unexcused absence, all credits due ; unexcused tardi- 
ness, 25 per cent off all credits due; less than 90 per cent in 
deportment for one month, 10 per cent off all credits due. 

n. Awards — Three having highest credits, $3 each; three 
having second highest, $2 each. Awards to be placed in a savings 
bank to the credit of the pupil winning it. Funds for awards 
furnished by the school-district board out of general fund. 

Values of credit scheme. Without approving all details 
of the plan as thus outlined, we may give some of the advan- 
tages possible from such a credit system of cooperation 
between home and school : 



318 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

1. It trains in habits of health and industry without the 
driving by parents so often necessary. 

2. It meets a sore need in homes where parents them- 
selves are ignorant, shiftless, or too indulgent. 

3. It forms an adequate concrete starting point for ap- 
plied instruction in hygiene, sanitation, and home ideals, 
which otherwise may be difficult to apply without offense. 

4. It may be made an effective center of correlation for 
vital instruction in English, applied arithmetic, and reading. 

5 . It develops a respect for the homely virtues and whole- 
some living, for the routine duties of father and mother. 

6. It successfully links the interests of home and school, 
giving the parents a part in school life and thus increasing 
their interest in it. 

Other plans. In St. Louis a different plan of crediting for 
home duties has been used with apparent success. There is a 
monthly record containing blanks for grades on various forms 
of characteristic home work as well as for the regular school 
grades. The parent fills in the grade for home work on the 
basis of the excellence and faithfulness of its performance 
during the month, and the teacher accepts this grade as 
equivalent to one required subject of the school course. 

In Massachusetts some "home project" is required as a 
part of all courses in agriculture given in the state-aided 
schools. This "project" is some considerable and valuable 
piece of work conducted faithfully under the approved 
methods presented in the course. It may be the cultivation 
of a patch of corn or potatoes, the raising of a pen of poultry 
or pigs or the care of a cow for a season with scientific 
feeding and milking and full records showing values, 
tests, etc. 

Instruction by " home projects." The homes, farms, and 
shops of any community may constitute an equipment for 
industrial teaching in many respects superior to any that 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 319 

can be provided at school. Lessons in domestic arts and 
sciences are most effective and least subject to the charge 
of being impracticable fads when they consist in the actual 
work of the homes guided and improved by class instruction 
and credited on the basis of actual home-keeping efficiency. 
The individual garden plot which each boy cultivates in his 
own back yard or a neighboring vacant lot constitutes the 
ideal laboratory for observation and practice of the members 
of a class in agriculture. The value of the lessons is greatly 
enhanced by the fact that the pupil receives the reward of 
his study and care in the form of profits and products instead 
of artificial and meaningless marks. Manual-training lessons 
may be conducted in the form of useful work done at home. 
Instead of a series of set and possibly useless exercises taking 
many hours of sadly needed schooltime, the boys may find 
their problems in the actual needs of the home. One desires 
to make a new gate or prevent the old one from sagging, 
another wants to put a shelf in the pantry for mother, 
another to make a set of steps or a flower stand. Detailed 
instructions, plans, and specifications can be worked out by 
and for the whole class. Those interested in one particular 
problem will work it out, reporting progress regularly to the 
class. Others will be simultaneously working up other proj- 
ects in which they are interested. This home correlation is 
a boon to small and poorly equipped schools, and those 
without adequate teaching force, in the utilizing of home 
equipment and home time. 

Utilizing neighborhood knowledge. A further advantage 
of this correlated home work is that instead of the getting 
of outside help or advice being considered a dishonorable 
thing, as is usually true in academic work, it is regarded as 
good, sound sense. Every encouragement is given to find 
the best means of doing the task in hand by seeking in- 
formation from every available source. What one does n't 



320 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

know he finds out in the most economical way possible. 
Parents, neighbors, locally famous cooks, master tradesmen, 
and all who know are freely called upon for all they are 
willing to impart. They may come to the school, or the 
pupils may go to them. 

Supervision and exhibition of home work. This corre- 
lated home work should be fully reported and carefully 
recorded for credit as school work. Teachers and pupils 
should occasionally make tours of inspection and instruc- 
tion to the homes where such work is being done. The 
products should occasionally be massed as far as possible in 
exhibits. A tl patrons' day " celebration or a special " home- 
work day ' ' affords the right opportunity. Along with the 
specimens of cake, bread, butter, jellies, fruits, etc. of the 
cooking classes and the sewing and fancy work of the 
domestic-arts pupils are shown basketry, mats, and carpen- 
try work ; poultry, pigs, and garden products ; farm and stock 
records. Photographs of back-yard improvements — taken 
before and after — and of the large nonportable undertak- 
ings make such specimens of the children's handiwork 
also available for display and competition. Prizes should 
be offered to stimulate such activities, and committees of 
prominent citizens should be interested in providing and 
awarding them. 

The church. The church is the mother of education. 
During the Dark Ages it was the church which preserved 
all that was saved of learning and perpetuated the spirit 
and agencies for disseminating it. Modern school systems — 
elementary, secondary, and higher — arose through the ini- 
tiative of the church. Now that the principle of public 
education as a fundamental responsibility of government is 
recognized there should continue to be the most cordial 
relations between church and school. There should, of 
course, not be tolerated the remotest effort to use the 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 321 

public schools for sectarian ends nor to inject sectarian 
beliefs or influences into its instruction or organization. 
Ikit the ministers of the several denominations are usually 
the most capable and willing people of the community for 
contributing to the broader activities of the school and 
effecting its wholesome correlation with the community. 
Their learning and public spirit is usually at the disposal 
of the teachers for the good of the schools. They often 
visit the schools to give a word of cheer and encourage- 
ment. In their pastoral work the various ministers can 
do much to strengthen the hands of the teachers and to 
secure the cooperation of parents by bringing about better 
appreciation of the aims and purposes of the school. Their 
close relation to their respective parishioners should count 
much in securing harmony and the highest efficiency in 
school affairs. 

The obligation is mutual. On the other hand, it is the 
duty of the teacher to show by precept and example that 
he stands loyally for that older educational institution which 
exists solely for whatever is noblest and highest in life. 
He should honor and respect every church and work faith- 
fully in his own. Like other good citizens he should not 
attempt to be in every church but to be useful in some 
church. With beliefs on which sincere, religious people 
are divided, the school has absolutely nothing to do ; but 
any study of realities brings us ultimately face to face with 
the infinite and the unknowable, and here the true teacher 
should reverently point his pupils toward God. It is not 
necessary to teach religion, but it is vitally important to 
teach religiously. We may leave the teaching of religion 
to the churches, but we should help every child to feel that 
the truths of religion and a better understanding of things 
eternal and things divine is the most worth while of all the 
learning of mankind. 



322 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

PROBLEMS 

1. In any recent course of study indicate the materials intended 
specifically to relate the child to his environment. 

2. What similar materials do you find in recent textbooks in 
science, geography, etc. ? 

3. From your own observation make a list of a number of 
facts of nature, life, and industry in your community which you 
regard as important for the children to be taught. Make another 
list of textbook facts which you think might well be displaced by 
the community facts if either must give way. 

4. Sketch a plan for reorganizing your school so far as may 
be advisable to bring it into thorough correlation (a) with the 
industries of the community, (b) with the home life, (V) with the 
public and governmental institutions, (d) with professional men 
and interests. 

5. Draw up a practical plan for encouraging home activities 
adapted for the school under your consideration. 

6. How would you answer the argument that the school has 
already more than it can do to teach the fundamentals and ordi- 
nary subjects without attempting to cover the whole community ? 

READINGS 

Carver. Principles of Rural Economics, chap. vi. 

Dewey. Democracy and Education. 

Dewey. The School and Society, chap. ii. 

Dewey. Schools of To-morrow, chap. vii. 

Eggleston and Bruere. The Work of the Rural School. 

Hart. Educational Resources of Village and Rural Schools, chaps, ii, 

v, vi, vii. 
King. Education for Social Efficiency, chaps, iii-vi. 
Scott. Social Education, chaps, v-vii. 
Seerley. The Country School, chaps, ii, iii. 
United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. j8j, School 

Credit for Home Practice in Agriculture. 
United States Bureau of Education Bulletins 

Bulletin No. 23, 1913, "The Georgia Club at the State Normal 

School for the Study of Rural Sociology " (Branson). 



COMMUNITY COOPERATION 323 

Bulletin No. 41, 1913, "Teaching Materials in Government Publi- 
cations." 

Bulletin No. 49, 191 3, " The Farragut School, a Tennessee Country- 
Life High School " (Monahan and Phillips). 

Bulletin A r o. 18, 191 4, "The Public School System of Gary, Indi- 
ana " (Burris). 

Bulletin No. 46, 191 4, " School Savings Banks" (Oberholzer). 

Bullet ins Nos. 36-39, 191 4, " Education for the Home" (Andrews). 

Bulletin No. /, 1915, " Cooking in the Vocational School " (O'Leary). 

Bulletin No. //, 191 5, " Civic Education in Elementary Schools as 
illustrated in Indianapolis " (Dunn). 

Bulletin No. 23, 191 5, " The Teaching of Community Civics." 

Bulletin No. 38, 191 5, "The University and the Municipality." 

Bulletin No. 43, 191 5, "The Danish People's High School" 
(Hegland). 

Bulletin No. 8, 1 9 1 4, "The Massachusetts Home-Project Plan of 
Vocational Agricultural Education " (Stimson). 

Bulletin No. 40, 191 6, "Gardening in Elementary City Schools" 
(Jarvis). 

Bulletin No. 6, 1 9 1 7, " Educative and Economic Possibilities of School- 
directed Home Gardening in Richmond, Indiana" (Randall). 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

SCHOOL EXTENSION 

Unrestricted service the new ideal. Our last chapter dealt 
with some of the ways in which the modern school is seek- 
ing to increase its usefulness by utilizing in the instruction 
of pupils the interest and cooperation of the entire com- 
munity. The public school reaches out and gathers in more 
broadly only that it may more broadly and effectively serve. 
If it boldly lays tribute on all institutions and all classes of 
people that it can make use of, it no less actively seeks 
out every class of the needy and tenders its services. In- 
deed it forces its help on those who are blind to their own 
needs. In seeking financial support and educative influences 
alike, it takes from everyone according to his ability, but 
only that it may spend itself in rendering to everyone 
according to his need. 

A progressive school system is no longer regarded as 
fulfilling its duty if it is content to dispense a narrow cur- 
riculum within traditional school hours to children of school 
age. School hours now are all hours in which someone 
can be found to be served with knowledge, training, or 
wholesome enjoyment. School days are any days of the 
year. School pupils are "all the children of all the people," 
regardless of health, mentality, poverty, family responsibili- 
ties, interest of the parents in their education, or any other 
thing but their need of schooling. Even here the modern 
public school does not draw the line. Regardless of age, 
the schools stand ready to help aliens to learn our language, 
the unlettered to acquire academic knowledge and culture, 

3 2 4 





USING CLASSROOMS AT NIGHT 

Above, The Games Club, Boston, Massachusetts. Below, a millinery 
class, Vocational Night School, Richmond, Virginia 



SCHOOL EXTENSION 325 

mothers to learn the art of making homes and wisely bring- 
ing up their children ; to extend to any and all who will 
accept it whatever of learning or skill will best contribute to 
the elevation and enrichment of their lives. Economical 
efficiency for its method and limitless service for its aim — 
this is the ideal of modern public education. 

An expression of this broader ideal comes to us from 
Pittsburgh : 

The schools of the people should give to the children : 

Ample provision for exercise and joyous play. 

Buildings simple, but stately ; thoughtfully planned, skillfully 
built, generously equipped. 

A course of study offering training for service and appreciation ; 
presenting in the order of their importance those things which con- 
tribute to a strong, healthy body, an alert, sure mind, a fine, 
steadfast spirit. 

Those things in art or craft which develop to the full the latent 
ability of each one to serve his fellows with dexterous hand, a lofty 
mind, and a glad heart, rich in response to the beautiful and noble 
in life. 

Teachers who love children with a parent's love and books with 
a scholar's fondness ; who find beauty and joy in service ; are 
large of vision, learners always. 

A training which leads from learning and doing on to wisdom, 
to high ideals, to service as a sacred trust, to worthy citizenship, 
to character. 

And, having given these things to the children, the schools of 
the people should also give to all citizens an exalted, neighborly 
life more abundant, making the big red schoolhouse a radiating 
center for the final good of all Americans and then for the world. 

Waste through an idle plant. The need for enlighten- 
ment is too widespread and the school plant is too valuable 
for it to stand silent and idle all but five hours a day in 
a hundred and eighty days of the year. The long vacation 
itself has proved a serious problem. A costly school plant 



326 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

stands closed and useless ; teachers, out of employment, 
seek temporary occupation or go home and most unprofes- 
sionally live on their parents ; while hundreds of children 
idly roam the streets, become bad company for each other, 
and forget much of what they learned during the past year. 
Three or four months are lost in this idleness, while at least 
another month is lost in starting and stopping the terms. 

The summer close-down. The child who does not miss 
a day spends less than one sixth of his waking hours at 
school, while the average member of the school is there 
less than one eighth of the time that his mind is active and 
being educated. Commissioner Claxton estimates that less 
than five per cent of school children go away from home 
to spend the summer, less than ten per cent are engaged 
in any profitable employment, while the remaining eighty- 
five per cent are in the streets, alleys, and loafing places 
without occupation or guidance. 

Vacation schools. For these reasons some hundreds of 
cities are now conducting " vacation schools." In most cases 
the provision for them is still meager. Teachers are few, 
and attendance, for the most part, consists of children who 
are seeking to make up individual deficiencies and thus 
avoid retardation. These quite commonly have the option 
of falling behind their grades or making up the work in 
vacation school. Special provision has sometimes been 
made for a select few who are sufficiently advanced to skip 
a grade by means of the summer attendance. To this ex- 
tent the vacation school serves to even up the irregularities 
of promotion in the regular terms. But it is the inevitable 
consequence that special advantages for the few unusual 
pupils will ultimately be considered the right of the many 
average pupils. Thus the schools of the summer vacation 
months are coming to be considered the right of every child, 
and regular classes are being more and more conducted 



SCHOOL EXTENSION 327 

with some adjustment of credits to permit summer attend- 
ance to count in accelerating progress through the grades. 

All-year sessions. It is but a step from this to the full 
recognition of summer work as part of the school year, 
making an all-year-round school. Newark, New Jersey, the 
pioneer in this movement, has found its all-year-school plan 
exceedingly popular with both parents and children. Al- 
though attendance is voluntary in summer and compulsory 
during the remainder of the year, 84. 1 per cent of the regular- 
term pupils attended the summer session, and the average 
attendance of those enrolled was higher in summer than in 
the other months. Both interest and scholarship are higher 
for the elimination of the long period of enforced idleness. 
Failures are fewer and the normal rate of progress covers 
as much in three years as is accomplished in four under 
the regular term plan. The schools are cooler and more 
comfortable than the average home or the street where the 
children would otherwise spend their time, and the regimen 
of life is far more hygienic ; hence the health of children 
is as good or better. Teachers are much better satisfied 
with the prospect of longer employment and most of them 
are applicants for it, although, as with the pupils, summer 
work is optional. Instead of the plan's proving an additional 
expense to the city, it has been found an actual saving. It 
appears that the whole cost of educating each child is 
decreased about ten per cent under this plan. It costs less 
to give a child an elementary education in six years than 
in eight. 

Part-time study. To meet the needs of the many older 
children whose time is required to help support themselves 
or their families, there are being perfected in several cities 
various part-time-study plans. This arrangement is effected 
by means of the cooperation between school authorities and 
the employers of youth. Children are permitted to attend 



328 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

school part of the day and work the other part. Groups 
are organized to alternate study time and work time with 
other groups, thus affording regular employment and regular 
instruction for the children as well as a uniform supply of 
pupils for the schools and of laborers for the factories. 
The groups may alternate by half-days, by days, or by 
weeks, months, or terms. Some industries require help 
only at certain hours or at certain seasons, and the school 
seeks to adjust itself to meet this need. The courses also 
are modified in collaboration with the employers so that 
the instruction received is more or less successfully corre- 
lated with the work which the children are doing. 

This cooperative scheme is solving several problems for 
the general good of all concerned. Instead of having to 
contend with erratic and sometimes unwise legislation 
against child labor and with the opposition of all friends of 
the school and of childhood ; instead of having to employ 
only the defective, delinquent, or desperately poor children 
who cannot or will not attend school ; instead of having to 
connive with parents and children to falsify age statements 
and employment conditions ; employers are in hearty cooper- 
ation with the school authorities and may secure a reliable 
and desirable supply of child helpers by direct application 
to the schools. Class work increases the interest and the 
intelligence of the children in the particular employment 
which they have. Parents, instead of having to choose be- 
tween the education of the children or their assistance in 
the hard problem of making ends meet, find that they can 
get both advantages under restrictions which preserve the 
health and welfare of the children and at the same time 
prepare them for further progress and higher wages. 
Schools secure the cooperation and friendly support of 
many industrial forces which have hitherto been largely 
antagonistic. Needy parents and pupils gain a new interest 



SCHOOL EXTENSION 329 

in the school when this proves the surest way to a job and 
the only means of securing steady employment during the 
school age. School lessons are vital when related to the 
problems which affect this week's pay envelope. 

The part-time plan is developing most rapidly in the 
manufacturing centers, but is also well adapted for farming 
and trucking sections, for large retail business communities, 
for messenger and delivery service, and can be utilized 
wherever numbers of children are employed. In Chicago 
the retail druggists have a successful coordination whereby 
high-school boys may spend a part of their time in phar- 
macy apprentice work and receive credit for the same toward 
graduation in a special pre-pharmacy course. In general, 
children are benefited by a reasonable balance between 
academic instruction and the exercise, training, and respon- 
sibility of productive economic activity. Idling is the bane 
of childhood, while work under natural, industrial regula- 
tions is one of its blessings. It is well that the industrial- 
education movement which is turning our schools into 
shops should likewise turn the shops into schools, and still 
better that it combine them both into a partnership for 
mutual benefit and for the welfare of the child. 

Evening schools. Those who must labor all day are also 
the care of our modern public schools. For them, regard- 
less of age, are provided evening schools in which anything 
may be taught for which there is a demand. From the 
" Moonlight Schools " of the Kentucky mountains, where 
the fundamentals are taught to three generations of learners 
at the same time, to the night high schools and vocational 
classes of the most progressive cities every sort of ambition 
for more knowledge or skill is provided for in evening 
classes, free or at a nominal cost for materials. Salesman- 
ship, journalism, art, music ; academic instruction of every 
sort and grade from primer classes for non-English-speaking 



330 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

aliens to college-entrance requirements ; printing, shoe- 
making, carpentry, plumbing, mechanics, and every craft ; 
domestic arts and science ; motherhood and sex-instruction ; 
swimming, gymnastics, and dancing ; military drill, wireless 
telegraphy, and aeronautics, — all are to be had for the 
seeking, though not all in any one city as yet. 

The continuation school firmly established. Some cities 
are still dwarfed by lack of vision on the part of school 
boards and councils. A few of them have but little more 
than outgrown the conception of the public school as a 
necessary evil, closely akin to the poorhouse and free hospi- 
tal. All are still crippled for lack of funds. But led by 
school superintendents of breadth and foresight and backed 
by progressive citizens, welfare organizations, woman's clubs, 
trades councils, and business associations, many sorts of con- 
tinuation schools which were regarded as distorted visions 
a few years ago are now firmly established by both law 
and custom and are rapidly spreading to every section of 
the country and every class of pupils. Pennsylvania has a 
law limiting the labor of children under sixteen to fifty-one 
hours per week, of which eight hours must be spent in a 
continuation school. Wisconsin has a similar law, and other 
states are getting into line on like plans. 

The National Association of Manufacturers expresses the 
industrial education ideal for the public schools in the fol- 
lowing program, which they claim is favored by educators, 
manufacturers, and representatives of labor. 

i. Two-years' and three-years' apprenticeship courses elective 
for children fourteen years of age and over who have had the 
equivalent of six years of the elementary school ; with shop 
teachers selected from the industries, and the instruction so coor- 
dinated with local industries that graduates of the courses may be 
credited with substantial allowances on their apprenticeships. 

2. Elective vocational courses for high-school pupils. 



HP**: 


SB 







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L •' ! . . .ju 


*^jj ^1 



FITTING THE SCHOOLS TO MISFIT PUPILS 
Trade classes in the Prevocational School, Richmond, Virginia 



SCHOOL EXTENSION 331 

3. Evening continuation classes for adult workers, and day 
continuation classes for employed workers under sixteen years 
of age. 

4. Practical training on real work and a commercial product. 

5. Control by a committee of representatives of employers and 
skilled employees under the direction of, and responsible to, the 
regular board of public education, insuring close coordination 
between the industrial schools and the regular public schools. 

Vocational guidance. Another phase of the school's 
responsibility now rapidly growing in importance and pos- 
sibilities is that known as "vocational guidance." At first 
this was confined to recommending to individual children 
the sort of higher school or college which the adviser 
thought they should attend or the sort of occupation which 
he thought they would engage in most successfully. " This 
conception is rapidly passing, however," says Commissioner 
Claxton, "and among the leaders of the vocational-guidance 
movement the chief function of their work is now regarded 
as the study of vocational conditions and opportunities, and 
the making of the resulting information available to boys 
and girls. The most important service that can be rendered 
the individual youth, under the name of vocational guidance, 
is to set him to thinking, at the proper time, about the prob- 
lem of choosing a life work as a problem to be seriously 
faced and prepared for — to make him fully conscious of its 
existence as a problem to be solved, and aware of the sources 
of data having any bearing on its solution." 

The movement, however, is being extended to the actual 
assisting of pupils to secure employment, the supervision, of 
the conditions under which they labor, and the advising with 
them both before and after they leave school regarding all 
matters pertaining to their employment. A considerable body 
of practical literature and some scientific methods of deter- 
mining fitness for certain occupations have been developed, 



332 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

and in certain cities expert vocational advice which would 
be beyond the capacity of the ordinary teacher is provided. 

Center of community life. The efforts of the schools to 
enrich life do not end even with their extension to every 
phase of instruction which can be accomplished within and 
without its walls. Whatever enters largely into the life of 
the community, whether work, play, or amusement, if it can 
be taken over and by wise direction and purer environment 
be ennobled and made more worthy, that is a function of 
the school ; that is a legitimate and wise use for the school 
buildings and funds which are the property of the people, 
contributed by the people, and for the people. 

After the exactions of daily toil people must have a 
period of relaxation, of personal freedom and pleasure, of 
enjoyment. They crave companionship and the intercourse 
of social groups. It is this need of humanity which the 
saloons, dance-halls, gambling places, and low amusements 
have seized upon as their opportunity. It is the satisfaction 
of this social and recreational need which the schools, with 
cheering success, are now reaching out to lift to a higher 
plane. Many millions of profitable and delightful eve- 
nings are now spent annually in recreational activities in the 
public-school buildings. These include social and literary 
clubs and gatherings, lectures, concerts, art exhibits, gym- 
nastics, dancing, parties, dramatics, athletics — - everything 
that meets a social need. Moving pictures of a high order 
at a nominal price and free to children are a most popular 
addition to this evening service. Milwaukee has installed 
a large number of the best type of billiard tables in her 
public schools. 

Reports received by the Bureau of Education indicate that 
somewhat over 500 cities held after-school occasions of a 
social or recreational character during the school year end- 
ing June, 1916. In about 150 of these cities there were 



SCHOOL KXTKNSION 333 

paid school extension workers other than teachers in the 
regular night schools. In about the same number of cities 
there were some schools in which the evening occasions 
averaged once a week or oftencr during a period of thirty 
weeks. School buildings were used as polling places in 
133 cities and for holding primaries in 112 cities. The 
Bureau regards these figures as an understatement of the 
actual facts. This does not include at all the widespread 
use of the buildings in a corresponding way in the country 
districts and small towns. 

Supervision of social activities. Supervision of these 
community-center activities by competent persons is neces- 
sary, and usually there must be guidance and instruction at 
the first, though the aim is to make them unhampered and 
to develop as much initiative in the participants as possible. 
The people themselves recognize the moral and uplifting 
atmosphere of the school and will not tolerate there the 
objectionable sort of language and conduct they would freely 
laugh over elsewhere. The very environment tends to lift 
their amusements to a higher plane. The following regula- 
tions of the school board of Joliet, Illinois, are typical of the 
liberal and sane provisions of many cities. 

In order that the public school plant may serve a wider com- 
munity use, the board of school inspectors will, bear the expense 
of lighting, heat, and janitor service when the school is used for 
the following purposes : 

1. Adult clubs or organizations for the discussion of educational, 
civic, and community problems. 

2. Public lectures, entertainments, or indoor recreational or 
educational activities. 

3. Club work among young people — literary, musical, dramatic, 
social — under supervision arranged by the school authorities. 

4. Political discussions may be permitted when announced in 
advance and equal opportunity given for presentation of both sides 
of the question, in accord with the American spirit of fair play. 



334 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

The above activities must be determined and controlled by a 
free organization of patrons and teachers of the community. The 
present rule barring the use of tobacco on school premises must 
be respected. 

PROBLEMS 

1. Draw up plans and, so far as practicable, make estimates of 
the cost of introducing the following extension features into your 
school system : 

(a) Eight or ten weeks of vacation schools for deficient pupils only. 

(b) Same for all pupils. 

(c) Part-time classes to correlate with any local industries which 
employ children under eighteen years of age. 

(d) Evening classes for foreigners learning to speak English. 

(e) Evening classes in such industrial training as may seem 
desirable. 

(/) Utilizing the schools for and supervising community literary 
exercises — games, dancing, etc. — for groups of different ages. 
(£-) Farmers', workmen's, or mothers' clubs, etc. 
(ft) Musical, military, or other training. 

2. Prepare a course of study for eight weeks' vacation school 
which would meet the needs for the deficient pupils of the grammar 
grades. 

3. What plan would you adopt for persuading the people of the 
importance of such opportunities if provided and for getting them 
to make use of them ? 

4. Make general recommendations as to such of these extension 
activities as you think should be undertaken under the conditions 
which prevail. 

5. What industries in your community are of sufficient impor- 
tance to justify adaptation of the school work to them in the way 
of vocational training? Which would justify the part-time study 
correlation ? 

READINGS 

Allen. Civics and Health, Part III. 
Butterfield. Chapters in Social Progress. 
Carver. Principles of Rural Economics, chap. vi. 



SCHOOL EXTENSION 335 

CUBBERl v. Rural Life and Education, chap. v. 

Curtis. Play and Recreation, Part IV. 

Dutton. School Management, chaps, i, xv-xviii. 

DUTTON and SnEDDEN. Administration of Public Education in United 

States, chap. xxxi. 
EGGLESTON and BRUERE. The Work of the Rural School, chaps, ii, v, 

vii. 
GARBER. Current Activities and Influences in Education, chap. ii. 
I [OLLISTER. The Administration of Education in a Democracy, chap. xx. 
KING. Education for Social Efficiency, chaps, xvi, xvii. 
LEAVITT. Examples of Industrial Education, chaps, x-xvi. 
Perky. Unused Recreational Resources of the Average Community 

(Pamphlet, Russell Sage Foundation). 
Perry. Wider Use of the School Plant. 
Puffer. Vocational Guidance. 
Seerley. The Country School, chap. vii. 
United States Bureau of Education Bulletins 

Bui lei in No. 20, 191 2, "Readjustment of the Rural High School 

to the Needs of the Community " (Brown). 
Bulletin A T o. 4, 1914, "The School and the Start in Life" 

(Bloomfield). 
Bulletin 1X0. 13, 1915, "The Schoolhouse as the Polling Place" 

(Ward). 
Bulletin No. 28, 191 5, "The Extension of Public Education" (Perry). 
Bulletin No. 38, 191 5, "The University and the Municipality." 
Bulletin No. 41, 191 5, "Significant School Extension Records" 

(Perry). 
Bulletin No. 21, 191 6, "Vocational Secondary Education." 



CHAPTER XXIX 

SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 

A teaching device. The special day is a teaching device. 
As such, its exercises should consist in the pupils' activity. 
Its success will depend on the thoroughness with which it is 
planned, the clearness with which the aim is kept in view, 
the efficiency of the motivation, and the persistency with 
which the lessons taught are followed up and applied. The 
purpose of the occasion is to focus upon one particularly 
important idea all the thought and efforts of the day, thereby 
launching that idea into the current of the child's experience 
and interests with an impetus that will insure its becoming 
a factor in his life's ideals and attitudes. An effective domi- 
nant ideal, such as is sought through the special-day exer- 
cises, involves (i) the vivid and attractive presentation of 
a body of relevant knowledge together with (2) the arousing 
of appropriate emotional responses. Neither knowledge get- 
ting nor any emotional state of permanent worth in conduct 
can be attained by a passive pupil. The special-day exercise 
is a means of intensifying educative activity. 

Any truly great cause is as worthy of the time and effort 
devoted to such special occasion as are the commonplace 
topics of the course. Instead of being introduced at the 
sacrifice of regular lessons, if properly correlated it should 
most effectively motivate the study of the common subjects. 
Geography and history are vitalized by anniversary celebra- 
tions ; science, hygiene, and economic studies by Arbor Day, 
Bird Day, Health Day, and similar events ; literature by 
the birthdays of authors ; while every such occasion gives 

33 6 



SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 337 

unparalleled opportunity for training in the formal studies, — 
composition, spelling, reading, and perhaps arithmetic. Public 
speaking, singing, dramatics, and some other accomplish- 
ments have little genuine motivation except on such special 
occasions. The mere breaking into the low-pressure monot- 
ony of daily work is often in itself a most profitable circum- 
stance. Each such occasion should be made to contribute 
genuine economy and efficiency to the regular work besides 
affording its own peculiar values. It may sometimes be true 
that special-day exercises are a waste of valuable time. If 
so, that fault is with the utilizing and not with the possibili- 
ties of the occasion. It is our purpose here not to discuss 
methods of making these special occasions contribute to 
general educative values, but to insist that they should do so. 

Occasion gives teaching aim. As to the idea or cause for 
which the day itself stands, the aim will vary with the par- 
ticular occasion. There are the birthdays of national states- 
men and heroes, in which the aim is to exalt in the minds 
of all the people the virtues which these men exemplified, 
to endear to each successive generation the causes for which 
they stood, to vivify the historic facts which cluster about 
them, and to dignify the country's history by enriching the 
general knowledge of its great events and crises. Yet 
how often is Washington's Birthday "observed" by merely 
closing the schools and making it a day of idleness or of 
mere pleasure-seeking. 

There are the birthdays of state and local heroes of war 
or of peace, of industry or of ideals. Individuals conspicuous 
for any virtue or achievement which may be held up for the 
admiration of the people and emulation of the youth are fit 
subjects for such special honor. The proximity of their 
homes, scenes of their labors, or results of their achieve- 
ments should help to make the exercises concrete and more 
effective. We say often that we seek to honor the great 



338 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

ones whose achievements we celebrate. But the dead cannot 
and the truly great would not be honored except through 
our realizing their ideals and purposes, by our continuing the 
work which they began, executing wisely what they planned, 
and bringing to fruit in the lives of the young the seeds of 
nobility which they strove to plant. 

Great authors are honored by making their personalities 
dear and their works familiar to the new generations of 
readers. They can live only in the minds and hearts of 
people. By projecting what is noble of their works into the 
lives of pupils we immortalize them and ennoble mankind. 
The public schools have a rare opportunity to serve humanity 
by using rightly the birthdays of the best authors, but not 
by making such occasions perfunctory. 

Honoring or dishonoring. The anniversary celebrations 
of great occasions of every sort bring each its own oppor- 
tunity for instilling patriotism, love of state or town, loyalty 
to some cause or ideal of supreme importance. An occasion 
which stands for no high ideal is unworthy of celebration, 
and a celebration which does not stand for that ideal is 
unworthy of the occasion. It is a national dishonor that the 
Fourth of July became so largely a day of mere noise, reck- 
lessness, and riotous pleasure-seeking until rescued in some 
degree by the campaign for a " sane Fourth " ; or that 
Thanksgiving Day to many is a symbol of licensed gluttony. 
It is Pagan that Easter should be impatiently awaited as the 
signal for social excesses in reaction from onerous restric- 
tions of Lent. It is worse than heathen that Christmas 
should become a day of mere hilarity and dissipation. 

Recreation is not celebration. All who work need days 
of vacation, which means days of emptiness, of doing noth- 
ing. We need days of relaxation, of letting down, of loosen- 
ing rigidity and tension — of rational " cutting loose " if you 
choose. We need days of recreation, of re-creation, renewing 



SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 339 

vitality and strength, of upbuilding. But these are quite 
different from days of celebration, of making someone or 
something celeber — famous, renowned. They are very 
different from holidays which are holy-days. The travesty 
on civilization is not in the wretched misuse of the words, 
but the tragic misuse of the days. A mark of every de- 
generate age and nation has been a great multiplicity of 
feasts and fasts in the name of patriotism or religion, but 
devoted to license. Let it be a sacred trust of the public- 
school teachers throughout our land to make sure that every 
day which is observed in the name of any noble cause shall 
leave the children of their schools a little nobler through a 
better appreciation of that cause. Increase so far as need 
be the days of relaxation and vacation, but let holy-days be 
holy to some holy cause and let celebrations increase the 
renown of some noble person or event. Holidays are not 
hollow days. 

Relative importance. Special days are set aside by various 
authorities in the interest of sundry propaganda. It is rea- 
sonably sure that these causes are all worthy. The danger 
is that in attempting to observe them all, the celebrations 
will become too common or too commonplace to be effective. 
Many of them are suitably honored by being made the 
special theme for morning exercises or the correlation 
center for the day's reading and composition work. Others 
will justify the interruption of the daily schedule and will 
warrant more or less elaborate preparation and public exer- 
cises. Not merely the importance of the cause itself but 
the need of accenting it in the life of the pupils and of 
the particular community must determine the degree of con- 
sideration to be given it. Arbor Day needs emphasis in 
the treeless plains and the barren boom-towns or factory 
settlements, but not in beautifully shaded suburbs or in the 
crowded city where there is no chance to plant a tree. 



340 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Form and aim. Some of these special-day causes, such as 
Peace Day and Flag Day, seek only a sentimental attitude. 
Others, like Arbor Day, Bird Day, Good-Roads Day, or 
Health Day, may seek to have the 'sentiment ripen immedi- 
ately into concrete efforts. Still others are intended strictly 
to initiate some practical movement for the community 
good. Such might be a Clean-Up Day, City- Beautiful Day, 
Better-Crops Day, Get-Acquainted Day, Fire-Protection Day, 
and the like. Some of these occasions seek to educate the 
children only, and some to influence children and parents 
together. Some are local in interest and aim ; some are 
as widespread as the nation or civilization. Some are 
among the means by which the school reaches out for 
varying materials with which to enrich its instruction of 
the children ; others are means whereby the school ex- 
tends its activities and resources for the benefit of all 
the people. 

Manifestly the nature and arrangement of the exercises 
must vary quite decidedly according to which of these 
numerous aims may prevail in any particular occasion. A 
great abundance of suggestions and materials, arranged in 
complete detail for such celebrations, is afforded in numer- 
ous government and state bulletins, in educational periodi- 
cals and books, and in the publications of the propagandists 
supporting the movements. The all-important thing for the 
teacher is to keep clearly in mind the aim and make sure 
that what is done contributes to that aim and not merely 
to " making the occasion a success." 

Resulting attitudes. One must be careful that a wrong 
emotional attitude is not aroused. Arbor Day was intended 
to develop a tree-loving, tree-sparing, and tree-planting 
people. In the first enthusiasm and general extension of 
the celebrations thousands of school yards were filled with 
trees stuck in without plan or care and destined to die. The 



SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 341 

inevitable result in such cases was that tree-planting became 
a travesty ; trees were wastefully destroyed, and lessons in 
neglect and in the folly of planting trees were instilled. 

Peace Day should result in a genuine love of righteous 
peace and horror of needless war. Flag Day should inspire 
a reverence lor the symbol of the nation and a willingness 
to live or to die for the glory of the country. Road Day 
should contribute tangibly to producing a nation of road- 
builders. Says Commissioner Claxton, " The roads are not 
built, because people do not understand their value nor 
comprehend how much beauty they would contribute to 
the country and how much pleasure to life. It is largely a 
matter of sentiment and ideals. These ideals are most easily 
created in childhood. What one would have in the State 
of to-morrow must be put into the schools of to-day." The 
same may be said of all great causes. 

Reaching the patrons. Any important movement for local 
progress or civic betterment, provided it is nonpartisan, 
nonsectarian, and strictly for the community's good, may 
be the subject of special school exercises. The more local 
and pressing the need, the more vital will be the study and 
discussion aroused. The fact that the school exercise does 
not seem primarily an attempt to teach the parents gives 
the teacher better opportunity for community service and 
community leadership. It may be presumption, and would 
probably be so regarded, to invite the citizens to school to 
be instructed how to make their homes sanitary. But they 
will gladly come to hear their own children read essays, 
quotations, and scientific articles ; to hear debates, songs, 
and dramatizations ; to study exhibits and hear addresses 
of experts ; all bearing toward the same end. 

Patrons' Day is a means of getting the parents to the 
school — sometimes with the aim of showing them the prog- 
ress the children are making by exercises and exhibits ; 



342 • SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

sometimes for discussion of school problems to the end of a 
better understanding and cooperation ; sometimes to get them 
to contribute time or money for some school improvement ; 
often for all of these ends. Where there is a domestic- 
science class, lunches or refreshments are usually served 
by the girls. Brief talks by school officials and patrons 
tend to crystallize sentiment favorably to the improvement 
of school facilities. It is not so much what is said as that 
the people are talking themselves into school enthusiasm. 
Very often these meetings are the means of initiating the 
movement for new buildings or other extensive developments. 

Special weeks. Under some conditions it is advisable to 
devote a week instead of a day to certain ideals or policies. 
In a school of small resources many feeble efforts had been 
made without appreciable result to get industrial work under 
way. An " Industrial Week " was planned. All regular 
work was either based upon or waived in favor of the vari- 
ous forms of manual work which were being inaugurated. 
Meetings of older people were held nearly every day and 
evening. Money was contributed, equipment secured, and 
the work placed on a firm footing for future development. 

Practical points. A few practical suggestions will close 
our discussion of special days. 

i. Go to headquarters and get the best plans and mate- 
rials. The United States Bureau of Education, the state 
departments, and the central offices of the agencies pro- 
moting the causes usually furnish these free of charge. 

2. Begin in time for considerable preliminary work by 
the children. The occasion is the incentive, but the work- 
ing up to it is the means of getting the children in thorough 
sympathy with the cause. There should be more or less 
gathering of data from the libraries, preparing of papers, 
orations, and debates, drilling in songs and marches, and 
arranging of exhibits, diagrams, and mottoes. 



SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 343 

3. Enlist the cooperation of representative citizens by 
giving them some part in either the program or the arrange- 
ments. Remember that getting an individual identified with 
a movement persuades him far more effectually than any sort 
of argument. It also helps powerfully to persuade others. 

4. In selecting children to participate in such exercises 
use (a) those who have the ability to do well what they 
undertake, but also (b) those who will bring into sympathy 
the parents and others whom you are particularly interested 
in reaching. One feels identified with a cause in which 
his child is taking part. But this usually necessitates group 
exercises or dramatization in which many of mediocre ability 
may participate. 

5. Have abundant action and movement. Short and 
striking speeches driving home one point at a time are 
more effective for children and for most people than long 
and logical addresses. Plays and music will interest many 
whom recitations and essays will bore. Graphic representa- 
tions and dramatizations will be remembered when the logic 
of addresses is forgotten. Most people favor a cause when 
they are pleased with its presentation rather than because 
they understand it. 

6. Avoid arousing enthusiasm to no purpose. If some- 
thing is to be done, get it started when interest is high. 
Follow up the lesson of the day with frequent references 
and applications in the work of the classroom. 

School fairs. The school fair is a recent development 
fraught with incalculable values in stimulating school work 
and public interest. It is organized much as any other fair, 
with contests, exhibits, and prizes. The existing school 
administrative machinery makes the planning and organ- 
ization a relatively simple matter. It may be held in con- 
junction with an agricultural or other fair, but it is better 
to let the schools have the entire stage to themselves. A 



344 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

county or similar territory not too large for children and 
people generally to come from the remotest part should 
be included in the territory of the fair. 

A fund for prizes is readily contributed by school boards, 
county commissioners or supervisors, business and industrial 
organizations, school leagues, merchants, and individuals. A 
catalogue is issued as far in advance as possible, designating 
the contests in which prizes are offered, the conditions of 
each contest, the classes of competitors, and such rules as 
may be necessary. Experience shows that a few clear rules 
are all that is desirable. The catalogue may contain adver- 
tising sufficient to pay for itself. 

Only bona fide pupils of the public schools of the fair 
district should be permitted to contest. These should be 
divided into three classes : primary, grammar, and high- 
school pupils, with separate contests for each, though pupils 
of a lower class may compete against those in any higher 
class. Some special prizes should also be offered for first- 
grade and second-grade pupils. Group work may be encour- 
aged by offering prizes for group projects more difficult and 
pretentious than would ordinarily be possible for an indi- 
vidual. Surprisingly fine results in academic and manual 
work have been attained in this way. By offering prizes 
for a wide range of achievements children of every type 
are encouraged. Academic excellence and every sort of 
handiwork, drawing, cooking, sewing, declamation, music, 
athletics, gardening, and even health habits and regular 
attendance may be effectively stimulated. Work done in 
school or out of school should be included. Particular em- 
phasis should be placed by means of more and larger prizes 
on any particular accomplishments in which the schools are 
weak. Whatever you would see developed in the schools, put 
it in the prize list. Instruction of almost any kind will find its 
way into the school when the children are sufficiently anxious 



SPECIAL DAYS AND OCCASIONS 345 

for it. The children will find someone in school or out of it 
to show them how to do the thing for which a prize is offered. 

Power of prizes. A prize of two to five dollars will 
literally put hundreds of children determinedly and per- 
sistently to work on most difficult tasks. The prize-winning 
performance at one fair is taken by all the contestants as 
the standard which they must excel at the next fair. 
Standards of attainment advance by surprising leaps from 
one annual fair to another. Parents soon decide that if 
other children can accomplish such work as is exhibited, 
their own shall not be denied the facilities or kind of 
instruction that will give them like opportunities. 

The objections to prize-giving previously mentioned are 
not serious under the conditions of a fair in which many 
schools are contesting. Particularly unobjectionable are prizes 
offered for group projects — those offered to schools or to 
grades or given for general excellence. 

The parade. The parade is among the most intensely 
interesting features of such an occasion. With band play- 
ing, colors flying, school yells and songs much in evidence, 
there is developed an enthusiasm and an esprit de corps 
among the children and a thrill of pride among the parents 
which perhaps nothing else in school life can equal. The 
procession should pass a reviewing stand, where some com- 
mittee of distinguished visitors awards the prize for excel- 
lence in marching and general impression. 

In a Virginia school fair one large rural school marched 
with every boy and girl in blue-checked homespun, each 
boy carrying a hoe and each girl a broom. Another school 
had every child and teacher in a white " middy suit." Such 
uniforms are so useful and cheap for general wear that the 
cost is practically nothing, but the impression made by 
several hundred children marching with uniforms, banners, 
songs, and yells is one never to be forgotten. 



346 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

PROBLEMS 

1. Review the manner in which you have seen certain school 
holidays observed and criticize according to actual educative effect. 

2. Make a list of the special-day occasions which you think it 
particularly desirable to observe in your school. Give reasons for 
your choice. 

3. Make plans for the observation of one or more of these, 
pointing out the precise educative aim and the definite means of 
attaining it. 

4. Indicate special needs of your community which could be 
contributed to by means of special exercises or meetings in which 
children and parents might participate. 

5. Prepare a plan for " Patrons' Day," beginning with the aims 
or needs to be sought and indicating the means of attaining them. 

6. Write out a general plan for a school fair, to include your 
school with others. Indicate the sorts of school work you would 
seek to stimulate and the contests you would organize in these. 

READINGS 

Settle. County School Fairs in Virginia. 

Farmville (Virginia) State Normal School ; Training School Work for 

Special Days. 
United States Bureau of Education Bulletins 

Bulletin No. 8, 191 2, " Peace Day" (Andrews). 

Bulletin No. 26, 191 3, " Good Roads, Arbor Day" (Lipe). 

Bulletin No. <{j, 191 3, "Agriculture and Rural Life Day" (Brooks). 



CHAPTER XXX 
THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 

Friction and lubrication. All relations of persons to 
each other involve opportunities for discord and conflict. 
The relations of the teacher are particularly complex and 
delicate and offer unlimited occasions for friction. Teaching 
implies an unceasing adaptation to the idiosyncrasies of some 
twoscore unsettled and irresponsible pupil personalities, of a 
larger number of deeply concerned parents, and of a varying 
number of supervisors, superintendents, and superincumbent 
board members. We have seen that in its best development 
teaching involves vital contact with almost every aspect of 
the life of the community. And at every point of contact 
there must be the lubrication of tact, good judgment, and 
sympathy, if friction is to be avoided. 

Rights and duties. Laws and regulations mark off the 
line of contact and possible conflict. They indicate one's 
rights and duties, and a teacher should know these clearly. 
But laws mark the limits beyond which one may not go — 
the maxima of rights and the minima of duty. The wise 
teacher knows his rights that he may keep far within them. 
He knows his duties that he may far exceed them. The 
whole attitude of a teacher who declines every duty that is 
not prescribed or demands every right that is not proscribed 
is an incessant irritant and provocative of friction. He who 
always "stands on his rights" soon plunges into wrongs. 
That teacher who does only his duty fails in the duty that 
is highest. It will be well, nevertheless, to outline some of 

347 



348 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

these rights and duties of teachers that we may the better 
give more than is demanded of us and demand less than is 
given us. 

i. Regulations. It is a right of every teacher to receive 
in convenient and easily understood form all legislation and 
regulation relative to his work. Statutory requirements are 
supplemented by regulations of various state and local boards 
of education, boards of health, sanitary and fire commis- 
sioners, superintendents, and other officials. There may be 
numerous rules of the particular school and sundry routine 
reports, requirements, and customs. All these should be 
simplified, clarified, and codified, and supplied to each 
teacher in black and white. 

It is the teacher's duty to study these laws and regula- 
tions thoroughly and to carry them out in spirit as well as in 
letter — sympathetically and freely, not carpingly or grudg- 
ingly. The letter of the law is the irreducible minimum of 
requirements. It is the beginning, not the end, of duty. 

2. Contract. A teacher having accepted an appointment 
is entitled to a contract specifying the term of employment, 
salary, mode of payment, hours of daily service, authorities 
to whom one is subject, and extra duties. This is legally 
binding on the board and no less so on the teacher. To 
abandon a contract at one's convenience, knowing that 
because of one's financial irresponsibility the board has no 
legal redress, is dishonorable. Any contract may be termi- 
nated and any position resigned after due notice and with 
the consent of the employing authority. Quite properly, 
superintendents are refusing to give indorsements to teachers 
who violate their contracts. Often such teachers are black- 
listed, and the laws of some states punish the violation of 
contract by suspension of certificate. 

3. Accepting position. One may apply for as many posi- 
tions as he pleases ; the uncertainty of election makes this 



THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 349 

necessary. lie may decline to accept when elected. He 
may ask for time in which to accept, though no board 
is under obligations to grant the delay. But once having 
signified his acceptance he is bound in honor to fill the 
position unless freely released by the employing authority. 
One may properly insist upon favorable sanitary or other 
improvements being made as a condition of his acceptance, 
but not as an excuse for breaking an engagement once 
made. Having given his word, he is morally bound as truly 
as if the contract were signed. As soon as he has accepted 
a position he should withdraw his applications for any 
others. School boards are often burdened with countless 
wholly presumptuous and undesired applications which they 
are under no obligations to consider, but applicants who 
have been under consideration, or have good reason to sup- 
pose that they have been, are entitled to know when they 
have been rejected as well as when they have been ac- 
cepted. The prompt information may be more necessary for 
the unsuccessful applicant than for the successful one. 

4. Right to a place. A teacher's only claim to any posi- 
tion is his fitness for it. Of the candidates for a desirable 
position there are often several among whom no one can 
with certainty determine which has the greatest actual and 
potential fitness. It is then that a personal acquaintance, 
a word in time from a mutual friend, may determine the 
selection. Until our system of preparing, measuring, and 
selecting teachers is far more perfect, chance and less 
creditable factors will often have much to do with the 
selection of teachers. It may therefore be regarded as a 
right and perhaps a duty of a young teacher to cultivate a 
wide acquaintance among educational authorities and among 
those who have influence with them. The leaders in other 
professions seek business through cultivating influential 
friends and acquaintances. 



350 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

But this sort of doctrine quickly degenerates into mere 
"pull" or boast. Friends worth while are not willing to be 
used to bolster up pretensions not built on genuine worth. 
Pompous self-praise and feminine wiles have been used so 
often that school boards even in remote sections are be- 
coming very suspicious. Frequent press notices bear their 
own evidences of pretense. Whatever means one may be 
tempted to use to get the attention of employing authorities, 
— and none is better than a personal interview, — the only 
sort of pressure that is professional or profitable is evidence 
of fitness as shown by the record of previous achievement. 

5. Tenure. School boards generally recognize the desira- 
bility of retaining teachers as long as possible. In making 
changes boards are often too slow for the good of the 
schools. But it is the right of the teacher to feel that, 
whatever the duration of the contract, one's tenure of posi- 
tion is safe so long as his work is efficiently done. A suc- 
cessful teacher should have no anxiety as to the permanency 
of his position. On the other hand, the teacher has no 
claim to a position except his fitness, and a board should 
very properly resent any other effort to retain a place. The 
use of personal friendships, social acquaintances, the inter- 
vention of parents or pupils, or other efforts to place a board 
in an awkward or difficult position, should be regarded as 
a violation of professional ethics and of a proper sense of 
honor. Any sort of appeal to social, sectarian, or political 
pull as a means of holding to a position should be regarded 
as a confession of lack of genuine worth. 

6. Indorsements. On leaving a position or at any time 
one may desire to apply for another- position he is entitled 
to a fair and frank statement from his superintendent as to 
his success in the work done. It will be a good day when 
definite ratings without personal bias can be given. Then 
any teacher should be entitled to know just how he is rated. 



THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 351 

As it is, superintendents and officials have been forced to 
the policy of giving few or no indorsements into the hands 
of the person indorsed, in order to protect themselves from 
occasionally having to face the alternative of saying empty 
nothings or writing frankly and having what they have writ- 
ten converted into ashes and hard feelings. Worthy teachers 
have no hesitancy in standing on their records and others 
have no right to embarrass officials by asking for to-whom- 
it-may-concern testimonials. Teachers have the right to give 
a former or present superintendent as reference, and the 
employing authorities should write to him for such frank, 
confidential opinion as they may desire. One such direct 
statement is usually more effective than many sent through 
the teacher. 

7. Exemption from interference. Every teacher is entitled 
to protection from all interference in the discharge of his 
duty. In several states the statutes specify that upbraiding 
or insulting a teacher in the presence of his school is a 
misdemeanor. In school not even parents may interfere 
with the teacher's management or control of their own 
children. But if the teacher is to enjoy this exemption 
from interference in school, it imposes upon him an obli- 
gation to keep in touch with parents out of school hours in 
order to secure their confidence by sympathetic conferences 
and consultations. A wise teacher will decline to discuss 
discordant questions before the pupils, but will seek a better 
understanding with the parent at some more appropriate time. 

8. /// loco parentis. With some variation in laws and regu- 
lations, it is pretty generally established that the teacher 
has control of the child in school, on the school premises, 
and on the way to and from school. He has no control 
after the child has reached home, although many trouble- 
some cases have arisen through the punishment of children 
for offenses committed while loitering along the way after 



352 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

they should have been at home. Obviously the wise policy, 
in case there is any possible doubt of jurisdiction, is to go 
to the parent in a spirit of helpful cooperation, to offer assist- 
ance if desired, but to invite no trouble which can reasonably 
be avoided. Certain aggressive young men and irritable old 
ladies seem peculiarly prone to create discord by attempting 
to extend their authority too far. This is usually resented 
and quite often marks the end of one's usefulness in a 
community. The right personal relations, indeed, render 
kindly reproof, a word of caution, or a serious conference 
more than welcome to either parent or child ; but punish- 
ment by a questioned authority almost inevitably fails of its 
purpose and leads to trouble. 

9. Right of punishment. As already indicated the right 
of the teacher with regard to corporal and other punishment 
is often limited by state law or local regulation. These 
restrictions have arisen from the growing realization that 
the best teaching and the surest authority are not depend- 
ent on physical coercion. A teacher who accepts a posi- 
tion where such restrictions are in force owes it to his 
position not to be finding fault with the regulations but to 
prove that he is one of those teachers who do not need 
the forbidden means to maintain authority. He should keep 
the law to the letter and rise far above it in the spirit of his 
teaching and discipline. 

Could an adequate supply of competent teachers be 
insured, it would undoubtedly be the wiser policy to vest 
unlimited authority as to punishment in the teachers and 
then hold them strictly responsible for the right exercise 
of it. But boards must deal with teachers as they are, and 
the restrictions seem to be justified by their successful 
operation in many city systems. 

10. Courses mid methods. It is the duty of the teacher 
to carry out carefully and sympathetically whatever methods, 



THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 353 

courses, and plans of instruction the higher authorities may 
formally prescribe. These should be given in no more detail 
than is essential to secure necessary uniformity of results, 
except as further details tend to assist with suggestions and 
guidance for daily work. 

It is the right of every teacher to plan the details and 
methods of his work, so far as they are not prescribed in 
advance, without fear of criticism or interference. No super- 
intendent or supervisor has the right to criticize any teacher 
before the class, and the supervisory function should in no wise 
hamper the initiative and originality of the individual teacher. 

11. Personal conduct. One is entitled to select his own 
boarding place, his own mode of life, his own companion- 
ships and associates. Outside of his prescribed duties his 
time is his own to use as he sees fit. His forms and times 
of recreation are subject to no authority but his own. He 
is at liberty to attend any church or none. 

On the other hand, he is unworthy to be a teacher who 
does not recognize that he is a public personage, under the 
public eye, and that his influence is leaving its impression 
for good or ill, out of school as well as in it. He has no 
more sacred duty than to keep himself above the suspicion 
of evil and to forego many things which may be harmless 
in themselves for the mere reason that they might be mis- 
construed by some overcritical people of the community or 
have a bad effect on the young whom his life may be con- 
sciously or unconsciously influencing. It is a supreme duty 
of a teacher to associate himself always and actively with 
those influences which stand for righteousness, morality, 
and community betterment. 

12. Cooperation. Cooperation is both the teacher's right 
and the teacher's duty. The co- means " together " and the 
ope rati o)i means "work." The word does not mean "work 
the other fellow," nor yet "everybody is boss." It means 



354 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

neither dictation by a superior nor submission by an inferior 
in rank. Nor yet does it mean that the superior must not 
lead or the inferior not obey. Leadership and obedience 
are absolutely essential to effective organization, and effec- 
tive organization is the very basis of successful cooperation. 
Superintendents, principals, and teachers must all be ready 
and glad to work, to do all that the contract calls for and 
at times a great deal more. Each must do all his own 
duty and also help the other where he can. " Bear ye one 
another's burdens . . . but let every man prove his own 
work . . . for every man shall bear his own burden." 
Supervisory officials are selected by virtue of their fitness to 
lead, guide, and aid the teacher in the ranks ; but effective 
leadership consists in getting subordinates to think for them- 
selves, to act independently, to have initiative, and to con- 
fer upon general plans, even more than it consists in merely 
working them. The higher official should seek, respect, and 
carefully consider the suggestions and opinions of subordi- 
nates. He should realize that the opinions of subordinates 
are often much better for them to carry out than his own 
can be. Nevertheless, it is his task to decide all problems 
except the internal questions of the classroom ; and when 
his decision is made, the cooperation of the subordinate is 
simply obedience. Whatever may have been his own opinion, 
the individual teacher owes his most loyal and hearty sup- 
port to the policy adopted and the instructions given. 

13. Courtesy. Finally, every teacher is entitled to cour- 
tesy and deference from associates and superiors. But in 
receiving it one is equally bound to render it. The rela- 
tions between the members of any teaching corps should 
be at least the same that should maintain between gentle- 
men and ladies elsewhere. Not only is this a personal right 
and duty, but it is a condition without which a wholesome 
schoolroom spirit and example are impossible. 



THE TEACHER'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES 355 

PROBLEMS 

1. From your state laws and local regulations list the pre- 
scribed rights and duties of teachers. Indicate carefully the 

■ mandatory duties and the prohibitions. 

2. Make a statement of the legal relations of the teacher to 
(<?) school board, (/;) superintendent, (V) principal, (</) parent, and 

(0 pupil- 

3. What duties not prescribed by law are specified in the form 
of teachers' contract used ? 

4. Write, for criticism by the instructor, a letter of application 
for some position, giving all the facts regarding yourself which the 
employer should know and giving references to responsible persons 
who can speak as to your personality and work. 

5. In any case of trouble between a teacher and parent, for 
which you can secure the data, judge the teacher's position as 
based on his rights. Did a contention for rights in any measure 
cause the trouble ? Would the teacher have accomplished his 
ultimate purpose better by not contending for his rights ? 

READINGS 

Arnold. School and Class Management, chaps, iii-vi. 
Chancellor. Our Schools, their Administration and Supervision, 

chaps, xi, xv, xvi. 
Cubberlv. Public School Administration, chaps, xiv-xvi. 
Cubberlv. State and County Educational Reorganization, Title V. 
Culter and Stone. The Rural School, chap. xvii. 
Hollister. The Administration of Education in a Democracy, 

chap, xviii. 
Page. Theory and Practice of Teaching, chap. xii. 
Perry. The Status of the Teacher, chap. iii. 
Salisbury. School Management, chap. vii. 
Seeley. A New School Management, chaps, xviii, xix. 
School Laws of your State. 
United States Bureau of Education 

Bulletin, No. 47, 191 5, "Digest of State Laws relating to Public 

Education " (Hood). 



CHAPTER XXXI 

TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT 

Self-management in school management. Throughout this 
work we have had in mind the ordinary teacher ; so in this 
final chapter we must forego a discussion of the ideal, who 
exists only in dreams and poetic imagery, and deal still with 
that real, everyday teacher — like the reader and the author 
— with all the failings and limitations which we both know 
so well. And we know that, after all is said, our own limi- 
tations are our most serious problems in the conduct of 
schools and in the management of children. We must 
know that the first essential of school management is self- 
management ; that he that ruleth his own spirit is greater 
than he that taketh a city. We have been careful to advo- 
cate only those plans and methods with which everyday 
teachers like ourselves can succeed and have succeeded. 
But countless teachers, as able and as deserving as we, have 
dismally failed in their work or have suffered untold discour- 
agement and wasted the best of themselves needlessly, for 
the lack of judicial self-management or of personal qualities 
quite attainable. Therefore let us look for a while at some 
of the controllable factors within the teacher which make 
for his success. 

Academic preparation. At the beginning is the prepara- 
tion for teaching. Jacotot said very truly that " one may 
teach that which he does not know," but the attempt to do 
so literally has often spelled disaster. One must know a 
great deal more about his subject than he expects to teach 
if he is to bring force, enthusiasm, or sane balance to his 

356 



TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT 357 

instruction. lie cannot hope to inspire pupils or project 
their interests beyond the narrow tasks of the day unless 
his own experience in the subject of study is broad and 
rich. It is an accepted principle that, so far as academic 
knowledge of subject matter goes, the minimum preparation 
for a grade teacher should be high-school graduation, and 
for a high-school teacher should be college graduation. But 
this is only the beginning. To teach vitally, one must be 
a constant reader. The monthly magazines and daily papers 
contain abundant materials and suggestions to vitalize the 
textbook work of the school classes. An habitual reader of 
good books will find them a constant source of enrichment 
both of his personal life and of all that he teaches. 

Common facts. There is a wealth of information around 
one on every hand if only his eyes and eafs are open and 
his mind alert. Nature and one's neighbors afford a mar- 
velous insight into the things of most worth in the com- 
mon subjects. Travel, however limited, is full of suggestion 
and revelation. Table talk and fireside conversation need 
not be pedantic to be full of helpfulness to one who seeks 
to get knowledge rather than to display it. The cumulative 
value of such wide-awake gleanings from daily life is a tre- 
mendous asset in making teaching worth while even as it 
is in making living worth while. 

Quacks and teachers. Fullness of knowledge, however, 
does not make a teacher any more than a stock of drugs 
makes a physician. There was a time when a few simples 
and a knack of administering them was all that was neces- 
sary for a doctor, and so there was a day when a little 
learning and "a way with children" sufficed for a teacher; 
but either such a doctor or such a teacher in this day 
should be regarded as a quack. There has grown up a 
body of scientific knowledge of children and of the laws of 
their development without which one may not hope to be 



358 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

regarded as a real teacher. There have been and probably 
will continue to be fads and much of shallow speculation 
and sentimentality, but the true practitioner must master 
the underlying fundamentals of educational science and 
learn to avoid the vagaries. Despite all erratic tendencies, 
in which it has shared the experience of medicine and 
other professions, few sciences have made more rapid, solid, 
and permanent progress than the science of education. 

Professional study. To be a teacher of more than rule- 
of-thumb possibilities, one must know this basis of educa- 
tional psychology. He must be familiar with the principles 
of its application to the art of directing child activities. He 
should observe much good instruction and analyze it in the 
light of his principles. He should have clear conceptions 
of the aims in all educational processes and the essentials of 
the methods by which they are attained. He should know 
the problems of hygiene and organization which arise from 
school conditions and the manner of their solution — which 
is the field we have considered in this book. He should 
have as a background for all his professional studies, to 
give them balance and perspective, some knowledge of the 
history of education. Furthermore his knowledge should be 
tried out, seasoned, and brought from the shadowy realm 
of ideas and images to the bedrock of practical experience, 
by teaching under observation and criticism. All this con- 
stitutes the professional side of a modern normal training 
course. It should be borne in mind that lectures and 
textbooks on pedagogy can never make a teacher, nor 
can observation lessons, however beautiful. Only independ- 
ent thinking can make books effective by interpreting 
what is said and what is read into specific instances of 
actual school life. No pedagogical theory or logic should 
be mistaken for a teaching asset until it has been made 
concrete. 



TEA< : 1 1 ER SELF- M A N \( ) EM ENT 359 

A continuing process. The normal course, like a general 
academic course, is only a beginning, a getting started right. 
Genuine professional education continues all through life. 
As in liberal education, there is a wealth of literature con- 
stantly coming from the press, any of which may happen 
to be as important and as epochal in one's development as 
the best that has passed. A growing teacher is necessarily 
a reader of the cream of the new professional books in his 
field and some of the best educational periodicals. Among 
these latter will be his state journal, one or more of the 
journals of methods relating to his branch of teaching, and 
at least one of the high-grade magazines of general educa- 
tional interest. Again, as in the general enrichment of one's 
life and knowledge, the experiences and opportunities of 
every day are the steps by which one rises in his profes- 
sion. . In the classroom, in conversation with children and 
parents and people generally, one is constantly getting a 
newer and truer light on the motives and values in educa- 
tion as seen from the side of the pupil, whether a pupil of 
to-day or of a generation ago. This is a most wholesome 
corrective for impractical theorizing. Visiting other schools 
and classes is always rich with profitable suggestion. He 
must be petrified indeed who does not grow hourly in pro- 
fessional zeal and ability under the stimulus of visiting often 
in new classrooms with new buildings, teachers, methods, 
and new groups of children to see. A partial substitute for 
this visiting privilege is afforded, along with many other 
professional advantages, by the occasional gatherings of 
teachers in institutes and conventions. Professionally, as 
spiritually, mentally, and physically, grozvtJi is- the only 
preventive of decay. 

Keeping physically fit. A professional asset of the 
highest worth is physical energy ; not that school demands 
heavy physical work, but it does require that poise, good 



360 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

nature, and enthusiasm which only abundant energy can 
supply. Irritability, fretfulness, and depression are common 
products of a weakened physique, and they are sure trouble- 
makers in the classroom. Hence it is the professional duty 
of every teacher to keep himself in the best physical trim 
at all times. Worry, too long hours of confinement or of 
work with lessened vitality and increased nervousness and 
impatience, are professional sins. Keeping-in of pupils, if 
indeed the practice is ever- justifiable, is pernicious when it 
prevents the teacher's having a needed walk or ride or game 
in the open air. Encroaching upon the hours of rest to 
mark class exercises is destructive of teaching force and 
so of thoroughness and efficiency. One as truly owes it to 
his position not to sacrifice his sleep, rest, recreation, social 
life, and peace of mind for daily tasks as he does not to 
sacrifice the tasks to these pleasanter things. Professional 
zeal which is destructive of the human joy of living is 
merely professional folly. First of all be a real man or a 
real woman, with real human joy and physical vitality. 

How to fill a full day yet fuller. But when " all the time 
there is " is too little for the countless duties incident to the 
school, how is it possible for the weary teacher to rest and 
read and play and visit and travel ? In short, how can one 
be a teacher and be thoroughly human at the same time ? 
As a bushel measure that is heaped up with potatoes may 
still hold several quarts of beans and then some pints of 
sugar and a considerable quantity of water besides, and 
yet be no more heaped up than with the potatoes alone, 
so a day that is filled with all the school work that it can 
profitably hold may yet provide for recreation, rest, and 
reading. 

This is attained only by a rational balancing of life's 
values in the day's work. With a maximum of six hours 
spent with classes, two or three more at most should suffice 



TEACIIKR SELF-MANAGEMENT 361 

for daily preparation and routine duties. Seven to nine 
hours of sleep, varying with the individual's needs, should 
never be interrupted by wearying work and seldom by rest- 
ful recreation. There remains a good seven hours each 
school day, much of Saturday, and all of Sunday for meals 
and other activities which are not strictly school work. The 
use of this "spare time" determines each person's position 
in his profession and in the world. Some waste it in loiter- 
ing, dawdling about, and talking idle nothings. Others 
waste these precious hours in misguided conscientiousness, 
worrying over school difficulties, drudging over useless 
marking of papers, and puttering over trivialities which 
with a little genuine foresight and vigorous handling would 
resolve themselves into nothings. 

Apportioning the day. Each individual must learn for 
himself how much of this spare time may wisely be spent 
in intellectual activity. As long as sleep and exercise are 
not stinted, it is probable that a vigorous person can work 
almost continuously while his ambition and interest lasts. 
But for most of us continuous study in a single field soon 
becomes burdensome and goes on at a low standard of effi- 
ciency. A little time should be devoted regularly to vigorojts 
exercise of the sort which is most enjoyed — outdoor sports 
or some hobby that demands much physical exercise. Meals 
and some other regular occasions should be happy social 
times with abundance of mirth and good fellowship. One 
should carefully select his boarding place, his friends, and 
associates with a view to having these social hours con- 
genial and enjoyable. There should be conversation of 
the kind that invigorates, cheers, • and delights, and music 
that one really enjoys. Some time should be set aside 
for regular reading of the daily news and current periodi- 
cals and for some systematic reading of good general and 
professional literature. 



362 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

Upward climbing. All this keeps one physically, mentally, 
and spiritually fit for his daily work, but progress in one's 
profession is accomplished by the systematic, determined 
study, writing, or other hard work done little by little, day 
by day, in the face of fatigue and discouragement, and the 
unceasing temptation to procrastinate. In this matter of 
growth a fixed ambition and a definite plan are essential. 
With sufficient determination and by doing a little every 
day, a truly astonishing amount can be achieved in the 
course of a few years in the way of extending one's educa- 
tion and fitting one for better positions. There is no limit 
set except one's own will power. It is in these hours saved 
for independent work that "self-made men" are made. 
What is done in one's working hours holds his job. What 
is done in spare hours gets a better one. 

A work schedule. For many, a definite, written-out 
schedule is necessary to make the right use of spare hours 
possible until the habit has been formed. It should be an 
elastic schedule as already recommended for class work. It 
is not necessary that all days be used just alike, but it is 
necessary that the relatively trivial matters of to-day shall 
not take precedence over the vital thing, and that the things 
we want to do shall not unduly prolong themselves into time 
set aside for the thing we ought to do. Each day's troubles 
and interests seem all important at the time, but all days to 
come will be like them in this respect. Building for the 
future is possible only by getting a right perspective of the 
things of the present. A time for each thing and each 
thing in its time avoids hesitation and procrastination, and 
these are time consumers. A definite plan makes for con- 
centration on each employment in turn. A vigorous life 
necessitates that one play while he plays and work while he 
works. The busiest men are the ones who have most time 
for achievements outside their daily routine, and this is 



TEACHER SELF MANAGEMENT 363 

because they have formed the habit of living strenuously, 
of doing vigorously first one thing and then another, but 
always doing and doing effectively. Genius is responsible 
for few genuine successes. Energetic " redeeming the 
time " is the key to greatness. Also the active, strenuous 
life is the happier life, the richer life, the life " more 
abundant." It has far more of fun, of recreation, of 
amusement, of pleasure, and of achievement. 

The folly of worry. Worry is everywhere the great 
destroyer of efficiency. It is useless, avoidable, and wicked 
in its disastrous results. Instead of fretting over what 
you cannot do, decide on what you can do and do it hard. 
Instead of getting excited about what cannot be helped, 
accept it and make the best of it. But if there is some- 
thing that can be helped, then help it. Divert your energies 
from fretting into achievement. Learn to see all the little 
troubles of the day sub specie aetcrnitatis, from the long 
viewpoint of eternity, and then their essential triviality will 
bring good humor and peace of mind. Faith in the ulti- 
mate right of all things is a force whose worth in the school 
can never be measured. Since "all things work together 
for good to them that love the Lord," it is only necessary 
to love Him and work your schedule for all you are worth, 
to be sure that nothing goes very seriously wrong. 

Personality complex but attainable. Personality is often 
regarded as a quality essential to teaching success. It is 
spoken of as though it were a single quality, a sort of gift 
of the gods which one either has or has not, like blue eyes 
or red hair. But there are as many personalities as there 
are persons, and there are infinite variations in kind as well 
as in degree. Personality has been as hard for psychologists 
to define as was "the will," and for much the same reason. 
Instead of finding that the will is a separate and distinct 
thing or function, they have concluded that "the whole 



364 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

mind active, this is will." So all those manners, accomplish- 
ments, habits, interests, abilities, and characteristics which 
make one the person that he is, — these are his personality. 
According as the combination is strong or weak, interesting 
or commonplace, attractive or repulsive, just so we may 
describe his personality. It is both native and acquired, 
both inherited and cultivated, both fixed and changeable, 
both predestined and made from day to day at one's own 
sweet will. Whatever gift one has been born to, let him 
make the best of it. But the qualities that count most are 
achieved through determined effort. 

"The best policy." Sincerity is one of the elements of 
personality for which each individual is responsible. What- 
ever he may be, let him be himself. Posing is the sure 
sign of an ineffective personality, but is an especial tempta- 
tion of the teacher. A too professional air, an attitude of 
superior wisdom, a pretense of knowing what one does not 
or being what one is not, an assumption of monarchical 
superiority, a prudishness in classroom which one does not 
take seriously outside, or the making of threats which one 
would not execute — these are forms of insincerity to which 
teachers of children are particularly prone. All are as futile 
as they are false. Children see through pretenses with a 
marvelous shrewdness, and a far-sighted teacher would better 
confess any ignorance or tolerate much disorder than to 
have his pupils once begin to discount his sincerity or ques- 
tion the worth of his threats. It may have been sacrilegious 
wit or mere confusion which first gave rise to the misquota- 
tion, "A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very 
present help in time of trouble," but the statement couples 
quite pointedly the effect and the cause of a lie. It is when 
the teacher is in trouble through lack of knowledge or lack 
of control or lack of confidence in his knowledge or in his 
control that a little lie — ■ white or light gray — seems a very 



TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT 365 

present help. But he may be sure that it is an abomina- 
tion and will bring its penalty. There are two means of 
avoiding such temptation : foresight and rigorous rules of 
honesty. Foresight plans to meet the difficulty before it 
comes and gives sureness and strength. A positive love 
of directness weaves no tangled webs of deceit. It is not 
one's business to know everything, and a frank " I don't 
know " is often good teaching, while " Look that up for 
to-morrow " is a far better method than posing as an 
encyclopedia. 

Tact and its uses. Tact has been defined as the art of 
attaining your own ends by the other fellow's methods. It 
is primarily a way of getting maximum results with mini- 
mum friction. It is an efficient lubricant for every " point 
of contact in teaching." Child, parent, teacher, and school 
official have but one end in view. All have a single pur- 
pose. Tact uses for each his own efficient immediate motive 
in order to attain for all the sufficient ultimate end. Tact 
is not hostile to sincerity. Honesty has to do with one's 
own motives, tact with the motives of others. To persons 
enamored of their own blunt directness there seems a moral 
straightness in assigning a boy a lesson and making him 
learn it by an immediate appeal to force, and there seems 
a sort of crookedness in first manipulating the play motive 
to make him want to do it. But such bluntness is a more 
or less egotistical expression of one's own impulses and often 
becomes a pose, while attaining educative values through 
nature's forces is the really straight road to teaching suc- 
cess. Tact respects the impulses and interests of parents. 
It recognizes their parental affection and pride, their igno- 
rance and their anxiety, as equally worthy of consideration 
and equally to be reckoned as one's own likes and dislikes. 
Tact is a habit attained by determinedly looking at every 
problem in the light of the interests and attitudes of others. 



366 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

It is considerateness and Christian sympathy which are 
never inborn but must always be cultivated by each individual 
for himself through much self-conquest. 

Politeness — a teaching power. Courtesy and politeness 
are elements of personality not unlike tact in that they are 
habits acquired through considerateness for others. If genu- 
ine, they soon permeate one's whole character and glorify 
his personality. The American word " citified," the Latin 
"urbane," and the Greek "polite" have the same original 
meaning and indicate respectively three degrees of the "strik- 
ing in " of a certain polish that comes from contact with 
others. The shallow "citified" quality is offensive because 
of its obvious superficiality; urbanity implies no moral worth 
though a very agreeable quality ; while true politeness im- 
plies both nobility of character and social charm. There is 
a fine teaching quality in one's readiness and sincerity in 
saying to his pupils, " Thank you," " I beg pardon," and 
" If you please " ; or his genuineness in conferring and re- 
ceiving courtesies precisely as if in a drawing room. Both 
for its agreeableness and for its tendency to duplicate itself 
in the children, politeness should rank high in the rating 
of a teacher's personality. 

Cheerfulness. Cheerfulness rests primarily on health and 
wholesome physical regimen, on comfortable sleep, happy 
recreation, fresh air, good digestion, vigorous circulation, and 
those other blessings of the simple life. Yet some strong 
souls rise above the clouds of physical misfortune and live 
in the sunshine of eternal cheerfulness. Wisely indeed may 
a school board prefer this glory of personality to many aca- 
demic attainments. It enormously removes difficulties and 
increases study power among pupils. Effort is often neces- 
sary to enable one to look on the bright side of things 
when everything seems to go wrong, but the things m<3st 
worth while cost effort. 



TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT 367 

Patience. Unlimited patience is another quality which 
factors largely in teaching success. We are ever rushing to 
get over the ground of prescribed subject matter and seem to 
fail to realize that children must grozv through their studies, 
not go through them. In matters of conduct we have been 
expecting children to act according to our impulses, standards, 
and insights. Good teaching means guiding the child im- 
pulses as we would train a vine and letting the growth come 
from within. Patience, too, is a self-cultivated quality based 
largely on a sympathetic study of real children. 

Courage to trust. Faith in childhood is a fruit of affec- 
tionate patience and sympathetic knowledge. The inspiring 
experiences of those who trust children wisely gives us un- 
limited confidence in the essential goodness of even the 
worst of them. The sturdy loyalty of the youthful outlaws 
of Denver to the trust that Judge Ben Lindsey places in 
them puts to shame our skepticism. Let us never forget 
that there is in every normal child an abundance of good 
impulses to meet every test to which we have any right to 
subject him, certainly to meet every proper demand of school 
life. The danger is in our trying to fit complex adult situa- 
tions to simple child impulses. Strong faith in the goodness 
of children brings with it a poise which commands respect 
and meets emergencies. 

Firmness. Sincerity, tact, faith, sympathy, politeness, 
patience, kindness, love, are assets in government because 
they are wonderfully beautiful things in themselves, be- 
cause they make the possessor of them lovable and attractive, 
because they avoid friction and the occasions of govern- 
mental restrictions, and also because they make positiveness 
and firmness possible. The firmness of stubbornness or of 
tyranny means friction, conflict, rebellion, or else mere grovel- 
ing servility. But firmness based upon the gentler virtues 
is easily maintained and thoroughly respected. It is possible 



368 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

to be firm without being stubborn, but many otherwise good 
teachers have gotten themselves into trouble and out of posi- 
tion by making issues of nonessentials, by contending for 
trivialities instead of for fundamentals, by laying down ulti- 
mata where only request was justifiable, by omitting the 
suaviter in modo from the fortiter in re. Firmness in essen- 
tials is fundamental to leadership. It is based on a clear 
conception of what are essentials. As a trait of personality, 
firmness may be acquired not by the habit of sticking to 
every position taken but by the habit of taking no positions 
to which one should not stick. 

Initiative. Initiative, everywhere vital to leadership, makes 
the main difference between the" spiritless, plodding school- 
keeper and the inspiring teacher. One who can only imi- 
tate methods, follow instructions, drag through a prescribed 
routine, deserves pity beyond almost any mortal — except his 
pupils. Every lesson, every problem of management should 
be a challenge for an original solution. With a mind well 
stored with guiding principles and practice in thinking out 
their application one should solve each pedagogical problem 
on its own merits. Thus is formed a habit of originality 
and independence which makes teaching the livest, largest, 
most inspiring work of man. Especially in the modern com- 
munity relations is there opportunity for leadership and a 
need to take courage and start movements which could not 
otherwise hope to be started. Courage for this sort of thing 
comes readily with a little experience and the discovery of 
how easy it is to set things in motion. Reading, visiting, 
and keeping abreast of the times will supply abundant 
suggestion, and good sense with hard work will devise 
the way. 

Personal appearance. Personal attractiveness is an impor- 
tant consideration among teaching qualities and well worthy 
to be cultivated. It is neither unprofessional nor unmanly 



TEACHER SELF-MANAGEMENT 369 

nor, needless to say, unwomanly to be as attractive as possi- 
ble. A sweet face is a better teaching asset than a pretty 
one. The teachers whom children love for their personal 
charm are rather those whose beauty shows through than on 
their faces ; not some skin-deep comeliness but a growing 
unselfishness, happy disposition, sympathetic interest in 
others, mental alertness, and genuine worth. Like personality 
itself, personal charm eludes definition. It is a complex so 
subtle that it cannot be analyzed, but young people should 
know that it is attainable. It is not a gift of the gods but 
it grows with good planting and faithful cultivation. 

Cleanliness and taste. Neatness in taste and dress and 
particularly cleanliness are personal attractions that go far 
to winning respect and admiration. Their opposites are un- 
pardonable in a teacher. A soiled collar, waist, or nails may 
contribute quite positively to school troubles. Leadership 
rests in liking, and it is very hard for refined people to like 
one who is "tacky" or slovenly. 

Friendship. Friendliness wins friends as nothing else can 
do. One who has been selected to teach the children of a 
community need have no fear that it will be considered 
presumptuous in him to regard their parents and the people 
as his friends. Timidity and the fear of being thought for- 
ward has caused many a warm-hearted teacher to be regarded 
as cold and aloof. While the people owe it to a new teacher 
to extend a hearty and friendly welcome, many do not, and 
unless the teacher makes the advance there will often be 
no advance made. 

" — But the greatest of these." The mightiest personal 
power that any teacher can hope to have is love for his 
pupils. Despite their faults and deficiencies, despite soiled 
faces and grimy hands, despite their stubbornness and their 
impudence, each pupil has a heart and a personality of his 
own and if only the earnest teacher will find the real soul 



370 SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 

of the boy or girl behind the frowns and the freckles, he 
will find someone there who is lovable and able to love. 
The teacher who can love his pupils to obedience, love them 
to industry, love them to loving him, has mastered the whole 
secret of personality and power. It is not hard to do. It is 
merely knowing them well, respecting the souls of them, and 
finding the goodness that is in every one of them. Knowl- 
edge begets sympathy, sympathy begets love, and love is 
the mysterious solvent of all sorts of difficulties that arise 
in school, in the home, or wherever human beings deal with 
one another. 

READINGS 

Chancellor. Classroom Management, chap. x. 

Colgrove. The Teacher and the School, Part I. 

Culter and Stone. The Rural School, chaps, v, vi. 

Dresslar. School Hygiene, chap. xx. 

Dutton. School Management, chaps, ii, iii. 

Ladd. The Teacher's Practical Philosophy, Parts I, II. 

Munsterberg. Psychology and the Teacher, chap. xxix. 

Page. Theory and Practice of Teaching, chaps, i-v. 

Payne. Education of Teachers, chaps, i-iv. 

Sabin. Common Sense Didactics, chap. i. 

Terman. The Teacher's Health, chap. vii. 

Weimer. The Way to the Heart of the Pupil, chaps, ii-iv. 

White. School Management, pp. 1 7-47. 



INDEX 



Aims, of teaching, 113, 216, 337; 

pupils', 2 17 ; of education, 230; of 

celebrations, 336 
Air, fresh, 40, 49, 81 
All-year sessions, 327 
Apparatus, 62 
Arbor Day, 13, 336, 340 
Architecture, school, 19 
Assignment, lesson, 218, 226 
Astigmatism, 30 
Attendance, contest, 104 ; regular, 

290 
Authority, teacher's, 298, 351 



Batavia plan, 129 
Bible in school, 200 
Book box, 56 
Boy Scouts, 312 
Buildings, school, 19 ; cleaning, 
readiness of, 194 

Cambridge plan, 128 
Celebrations, 336 
Character building, 233, 236 
Charts, 64 
Cheerfulness, 366 
Church relations, 320, 353 
Cities, school, 283 
Citizenship, school, 290, 311 
Classification of pupils, 119 
Classrooms, 21 
Cleaning buildings, 75, 81 
Cleaning floors, 76 
Cleaning grounds, 15 
Cleanliness, of buildings, 75, 82 

pupils, 93 ; of teachers, 369 
Cloakrooms, 23 
Comenius, 1 19 
Commands, 299 
Community center, 332 
Community relations, 304 
Conduct of teachers, 353 
Contagion, 86 



Contagious diseases, 90 
Continuation schools, 330 
Contract, teacher's, 348 
Cooperation, of community, 304, 

327 ; of teachers, 353 ; of pupils 

{see Pupil participation) 
Corporal punishment, 273 
Corridors, 21 
Coughing, 87 
Courage, 301, 367 
Course of study, 109, 352 
Courtesy, 299, 354, 366 
Criticisms, 218, 219 



Daily schedule, 167 

Defective lighting, 34 

Defective pupils, 95, 102 

Defective vision, 30, 35 
75 ; Democracy, school, 283, 298 

Dental inspection, 97 

Departmental teaching, 123 

Desks, 54 

Devotional exercises, 199 

Differentiated courses, 133 

Discipline, 269, 292, 301 

Diseases, contagious, 90 

Dishonesty, 294 

Disinfecting, 78, 90, 92 

Doors, 22 

Drafts, window, 39 

Drill, superfluous, 221 

Drinking facilities, 87 

Drudgery, 229, 239 

Dust, 76, 78 
; of Dusting, 77, 81 

Duties of teachers, 347 

Economy, in management, 1 ; in 
buildings, 26 ; in desks, 60 ; in 
apparatus, 62 ; in organization, 
121 ; in schedule, 171 ; in study 
schedule, 184; by right start, 194; 
in routine, 207 ; in teaching and 

37i 



37 2 



SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 



study, 215; in thoroughness, 222 ; 
in list of " inexcusables," 223 ; in 
play and work, 236 ; in marking, 
245 ; by social motivation, 260 ; 
in incentives, 265 ; in order, 281 ; 
in government, 285 ; in wider use 
of school plant, 325 ; in all-year 
session, 327 
Educative values, in management, 
2; of grounds, 10, 12, 15, 17; of 
buildings, 25; of lighting, 36; of 
ventilation, 50 ; of posture, 60 ; 
of apparatus, 64, 71 ; of housekeep-. 
ing, 75, 79 ; of cleanliness, 88 ; of 
health, 93, 103, 104; of grading, 
122, 134, 156; of promotions, 139, 
143, 145, 146; of examinations, 
140; of reports, 160 ; of schedule, 
172 ; of study programs, 186, 188, 
190 ; of morning exercises, 199, 
203; of routine, 207, 210; of fire 
drills, 213; of list of "inexcus- 
ables," 223; of study, 225; of 
work, 233, 234 ; of grading papers, 
242, 246 ; of social problems, 257 ; 
of motives, 260, 262 ; of incentives, 
264; of punishment, 269, 275 ; of 
government, 281 ; of corrective 
government, 292 ; of community 
relations, 304 ; of special days, 
336 ; of prizes, 345 
Efficiency, in promotions, 146; in 

learning, 235 
Elastic schedule, 176 
Entertainments, public, 308 
Equipment, 62 
Evening schools, 329 
Examinations for promotions, 140 
Excursions, school, 37 
Exercises, morning, 199, 203 
Extension, school, 324 [98, 10 1 

Eyes, strain of, 28 ; examination of, 

Fairs, school, 104, 343 
Faith in pupils, 367 
Fatigue, 169 
Fighting, 295 
Fire drills, 212 
Firmness, 367 
First day, 194 
Flexible grading, 130 
Fresh air, 40, 49 
Friendship, 369 



Gardening, school-home, 315 

Gary plan, 180 

Government, constructive, 281 ; cor- 
rective, 293 

Grades, daily, 142; marks in, 150; 
ranking in, 161 

Grading papers, 239 

Grading pupils, 121; systems for, 128 

Gravity systems, 44 

Grounds, school, 9 

Group motivation, 258, 260 

Group teaching, 130 

Habit, laws of, 208 

Health, teacher's, 359 

Health and attendance contest, 105 

Health ideals, 93, 106 

Health inspection, 85 

Health officers, £0 

Health precautions, 86 

Health records, 101 

Health reports, 102 

Health responsibility, 84, 95 

Health training, 104 

Hearing tests, 101 

Heat and ventilation, 37 

High-school program, 179 

Holidays, 337 

Home life and school work, 185, 190 

Home study, 184 

Home work, credits for, 316 

Honesty, teacher's, 364 

Honor system, 282 

Housekeeping, school, 75, 80 

Housekeeping lessons, 314 

Humidity, 43, 49, 80 

Hygiene of eyes, 35 

Hygienic posture, 58 

Hygienic ventilation, 41 

Hypermetropia, 30 

Impulses, 250 

Incentives, 263, 269 

Individual instruction, 129, 135, 174, 

188 
Indorsements, 350 
Industries, 313 

" Inexcusables," 223, 239, 241 
Infection, 87, 93 
Initiative, of pupil, 210 ; of teacher, 

368_ 
Inkwells, 56 
Instincts, 251 



INDEX 



373 



Interests, 230 

Interference with teachers, 351 

Jacketed stoves, | | 

Janitor service, 80 

Janitors, 76 

Jesuits, 109 

Judgment, teacher's, 143; pupils',2 |<> 

Justice not blind, 293 

Lancastrian schools, 20, 120 

La Salle, 1 19 

Lesson, types of, 2 1 7 ; plans for, 2 1 7 

Library, school, 69 

Lighting, 2S 

Location of school, 10 

Love, government by, 369 

Management, scope of, 1 
Maps, 68 

Marking systems, 150, 245, 247 
Medical cooperation, 315 
Medical inspection, 85, 97 
Mechanical organization, 120, 125 
Melanchthon, 109, 119 
Methods of teaching, ?\j, 352 
Monitorial schools, 1-20 
Monitors, 288 
Montessori program, 180 
Morning exercises, 199, 203 
Motivation, 133, 297 ; social, 224, 

252 ; principles of, 262 
Motives, 250, 294 
Movable desks, 57 
Moving pictures, 69, 308 
Museums, school, 69 
Myopia, 30 

Natural punishment, 276, 292 
Normal-distribution marking, 153 
Nurse, school, 99 

Obedience, of pupil, 299 ; of teacher, 

354 
Open-air schools, 38 
Order, defined, 281 
Organization, of school, 1 19 ; aims 

of, 124 
Oxygen and study, 41 

Parade, school-fair, 345 
Parents, report to, 159; relations 
with, 287, 341 



Part-time study, 327 

Passing papers, routine of, 208 

Patience, 367 

1 'at ions' Day, 34 1 

Personal appearance, 368 

Personality, 363 

Phonograph, 70 

Planning lessons, 217 

Play, 229, 252 

Playgrounds, 12, 70 

Politeness, 366 

Position, securing, 34S ; tenure of, 350. 

Posture, 58, 60 

Preparation for teaching, 356 

Press and school, 306 

Privies, 16, 24 

Prizes, 266, 275, 344 

Problems, in study, 6, 225 

Profanity, 295 

Professional growth, 358, 362 

Program, daily, 176 

Progress notes, 220, 289 

Promotions, 135, 145, 148 

Public service, relations to, 309 

Pueblo plan, 129 

Punctuality, 290 

Pupil participation, in community 
life, 306, 309 ; in the work of the 
home, 316; in celebrations, 343 

Pupil participation in management, 
educative value of, 2 ; grounds, 12, 
15,16; buildings, 25 ; ventilation, 
50 ; seats, 60 ; apparatus, 64 ; 
playgrounds, 71; cleaning, 79; 
promotions, 145 ; study programs, 
187 ; first day, 198 ; morning ex- 
ercises, 203; routine, 210; "in- 
excusable" lists, 224; marking 
papers, 241; recitations, 258; 
punishment, 278 ; government, 
281 

Tupil-teachers, 120 

Railroads, cooperation of, 314 
Ratio Studiorum, 109 

Rebellion, of pupils, 298 
Recitation periods, 167 
Recreation, in schedule, 169 ; versus 

celebration, 338 ; teacher's, 360 
Relative ranking, 154 
Repairs, 25, 26, 60 
Reports to parents, 159 
Results, teaching, 2, 113, 220 



374 



SCHOOL EFFICIENCY 



Rights, teacher's, 347 
Routine, 206, 229 

Rules and regulations, 8, 285, 290, 
347 

Sanitary conditions, 10, 86 
Savings banks, school, 312 
Schedule, daily, 167; study, 186; 

teacher's, 362 . 
School cities, 283 
School extension, 324 
School fairs, 104, 343 
Seating, school, 53 ; hygiene of, 58 
Segregated study plan, 188 
Self-government, of pupil, 283 ; of 

teacher, 356 
Shifting group plan, 130 
Sincerity, 364 
Singing, values of, 202 
Social activities, 332 
Social government, 281 
Social groups, 256 
Social motives, 252, 278 
Social problem (health), 85, 93 
Social relations, 304 
Special classes, 128 
Special days, 336 
Special weeks, 342 
Spitting, 87 
Stairways, 22 
Stereopticon, 69 

Study, suggestions for, 5 ; habits of, 
186, 189, 197, 224; waste in, 224; 

professional, 358 
Study programs, 186 
Sturm, 119 

Summer sessions, 326 
Sympathy, 256 

Tact, 365 

Teaching, measures of, 115; waste 
in, 2 1 5 ; as affected by : eyestrain, 
28 ; ventilation, 41 ; seating, 54, 
60 ; apparatus, 62 ; physical de- 
fects, 95; course of study, 115; 
flexible grading, 135 ; grading sys- 
tems, 139, 145; marking systems, 



150, 156; reports to parents, 165; 
schedule, 176; aims, 216; plans, 
218; progress notes, 220; drudg- 
ery, 237, 239; marking papers, 
247 ; motives, 253, 257 ; incen- 
tives, 264 ; punishment, 269, 275 ; 
professional preparation, 357 ; 
physical condition, 359; person- 
ality, 363 
Teeth, defective, 96 ; inspection of, 

97 
Temperature, 42, 80 
Tests, informal, 142 ; scientific, 148 
Textbooks, use of, 113 
Thoroughness, 220, 222 
Threats, 300 
Time limits, 1 1 1 
Time saving, 171, 215, 222, 360 
Toilets, 16, 24 
Towels, 88 
Type in printing, 35 
Types of teaching, 217 

Ungraded schools, 120 

Vacation schools, 326 

Ventilation, systems of, 40 ; prob- 
lem in, 41 ; standards of, 47 ; prin- 
ciples of, 50 

Vices, remedy for, 296 

Virility, 296 

Vocational guidance, 331 

Wall, coloring, 33 

Waste, in equipment, 62 ; from 
physical defects, 95 ; in teaching, 
215; in study, 224; in idle plant, 

3 2 5 
Water supply, 88 
Wells, school, 88 
Whispering, 286 
"Window boards, 39 
Window cleaning, 82 
Window shades, 33 
Window ventilation, 38 
Windows, 32 
Worry, folly of, 363 



